by David Wachs

For small businesses and sole practitioners, conquering social/mobile media can be a time-consuming process and may not bring about any increase in sales. One technology that is easy to use, requires minimal time and investment, and generates increased repeat business is mobile marketing.

Mobile marketing is an effective tool that has the potential to engage your customers. The key is knowing how to most effectively utilize mobile marketing. Here are some tips:

1. Mobile marketing is great for building loyalty among current clients. Incentivize your customers to sign up for your mobile club. The next time they come in for a massage or treatment, hand them a card with a 10-percent discount for signing up to receive your messages.

2. Give them a reason to keep coming back. Once customers are signed up to receive texts, make sure you give them a reason to want to stay in the club. Messages do not all have to be discounts, but can include surveys,

3. Amp up your messaging during slow times and busy times. To drive increased sales when business is slow, send reminders and/or special time-sensitive offers to your customers. In the busy season, like near the holidays, it may just take a reminder that a massage makes a great gift.

Find a mobile marketing company to partner with that has services for smaller businesses or franchisees and does not require a high volume of messages. Make sure the partner understands compliance issues.

David Wachs is president of Cellit. Cellit develops mobile customer relationship management (CRM) programs for spas and salons, retailers, restaurants and other companies who want to leverage mobile technology to create a deeper level of customer engagement. Cellit's Spark mobile marketing platform allows small businesses to put messages and coupons directly in their customers' hands. For more information, visit www.cellitspark.com. 

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