Digital Marketing: Mobile traffic overtakes desktop

Google recently reported that search queries on mobile devices such as smartphones have surpassed desktop searches.

This data confirms what most of us already knew - consumers no longer go somewhere (desk or home office or some other stationary spot) to find answers or entertainment.

Mobile devices have integrated search queries into day-to-day decision-making processes, changing consumer behavior at a basic level.

Where is it? How Much? Who has it? What time? How long? Good versus bad? What happened?

If a business wants to reach the consumer, it needs to be online when and where consumers are searching, wherever they happen to be.

Some larger retailers have mobile apps with mobile mapping, in-store discounts, price-comparison tools and a host of other newfangled features. Small and mid-sized businesses can add other, less expensive options to their mobile marketing strategy.

Location-Based Tools

Some solutions may be entirely new, while others are an online adaptations of traditional, paper solutions. For instance, the use of interactive mapping features on websites and apps are some of the most useful and cost-effective tools available today.

Take a distinctly low-tech affair such as the Cedar Rapids Farmers Market. These popular events now feature more than 200 vendors drawing an average 14,000 visitors per market, according to its sponsor, the Cedar Rapids Metro Economic Alliance.

But with so many small vendors in a several block area, how does a visitor even know a business is there or where to find it?

The farmers market now uses a vendor called Manage My Market with an elegant solution to this rather pedestrian problem. Savvy market visitors can now go to the Vendor Map on the city's farmers market page for access to an interactive map of the market area, listing every single vendor with a business description and their physical location, updated for each event.

Geo-Fencing

A new twist to targeted display advertising called geo-fencing recognizes consumers' physical location based on their smartphone's GPS capabilities. While traditional targeted display advertising serves up ads based primarily on a consumer's previous online behavior and IP address, geo-fencing adds the consumer's location to the mix of targeting options.

The technology allows advertisers to place a virtual fence around a specific geographic area and serve ads while the consumer is in that area and up to 30 days afterward. Businesses can request the ads be served to consumers based on geographical location alone or in combination with other known demographics and preferences.

These ads appear on all kinds of sites, not just search engines - social media, online directories, apps, streaming audio and video, and many other online sites frequented by mobile users, subtly reminding them of their interest. For example, if a consumer previously searched for information about a particular brand of basketball shoes and then was detected in the area of a sporting goods store using geo-fencing, relevant ads appear on the consumer's phone about the shoes or the business.

Few businesses are so small or traditional that they can't take advantage of mobile advertising. Connecting the brick-and-mortar shopping experience with the consumers' mobile devices will grow as our reliance on all things digital grows.

' Regina Gilloon-Meyer is a content marketing specialist for Fusionfarm, a division of The Gazette Company. (319) 368-8530, regina@fusionfarm.com, @Regiimary