Thread: Mobile Marketing

Do any facilities have a mobile-friendly website? Do you think it's important?

Yes, most websites should be seeing about 20% of their traffic coming from mobile devices; you can use Google Analytics to track this data. With the right analytic software you can know what type of phone your visitors are using, where they are located, how long they stayed, etc. However, with most smart phones now being able to display full web pages without any problems I'm "guessing" that mobile sites will phase out. The real question is should be what do you provide on a mobile site that is effective at converting visitors into potential leads while they are still popular.

Personally, I always look for the "visit full site" link\button when surfing on my smart phone.

Yes it's important. I doubt if many Self Storage sites are mobile friendly.

With WordPress we've seen many themes designed to be responsive. That
means your current website will fit to an iPad type device and smart phones.
It's easy to make the site responsive by adding code to a file.

Responsive doesn't mean it's a mobile site. To have a true mobile site you have
a different design altogether. Basically you get rid of all the useless stuff you
normally have on your regular website.

I disagree with SSandecki. Mobile is taking over our regular type websites.

Mobile will be here until the next big thing arrives. Check out Google Wallet.
Check out Square.

Mobile is happening right now. Every business needs to get up to speed, fast.

Do we have a mobile site? does this answer your question, what is a mobile site? The tenants can hardly pay their rent these days, so I don't know how they have a the money to pay a smart phone phone bill. And I agree with ssandecki, whats the point of having a mobile site if the devices can use the regular site? I personally hate mobile sites, its basically a half website. To be honest I don't have too much faith in online marketing, yes it is needed, but so is the phonebook, just got anouther phonebook rental yesterday by the way.

Just my $.02

Why not use all the tools at your disposal. Remember the days when
you went to a car dealer and the salesman offered you a cigarette so
he could buddy up to you. He did it so you and him could be buddies
so he could sell you.

That's how to look at online marketing. Have a way to contact prospective
customers and keep in touch with them. You can be their go to storage
guy.

When I started my Storage business there was no internet. I handed out
1000s of business cards, 1000s off flyers, yellow page ads, word of mouth,
the whole thing every month.

Now you can do all those things and use all the online tools at your disposal.

57 million iPads have been sold. Everyone and their dog has a cell phone.

You might not like online stuff and gadgets, but your customers do.

I do use online marketing, I just think that 75% of the time it is a waste of time. Yes we do all we can, but there is such hipe about online, and not much return, drive by's still genrate 90% of our business, now once they drive by, then they may look us up online.

As for everyone having cell phones, I know everyone has a cell phone, they call us on them. I will say though that there are more people out there than you think that don't surf the web on their phones. My wife gave me her smart phone so she could upgrade, and as soon as my contract is up I'm going back to a flip phone, the only thing I use on the phone is the calculator and the phone function.

I'm with you MZC&D....maybe I'm old school, but most of my tenants are too! I use my phone to make calls, receive calls, I've taken two pictures with it, and if I want to communicate with my sons, I have to send and receive texts....I don't even use the calculator.

Originally Posted by MZC&D

And I agree with ssandecki, whats the point of having a mobile site if the devices can use the regular site? I personally hate mobile sites, its basically a half website.

This is my primary point, there will be no such thing as a mobile website in the next 2 to 4 years since all mobile devices will have web browsers that can render full websites.

Originally Posted by Bill Stilwell

I disagree with SSandecki. Mobile is taking over our regular type websites.

I'd sure love to see the analytical data to back that up.

We have a mobile enabled site and I would dare say that close to 50% click through to the 'visit full site' link because they have been there before and know the navigation. They aren't too fond of fidgeting with something new when they already know the other site info. I would say that if you are going to enable a site for a mobile device, consider just making it a way to contact you to turn it into a sale.