Proudly serving the industry for which it was named for more than 50 years, Outdoor Power Equipment provides dealers who sell and service outdoor power equipment with valuable information to succeed in a competitive market.
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OUTDOOR POWER EQUIPMENT w w w. o u t d o o r p o w e re q u i p m e n t . c o m 26 FEATURE STORY 26 I f "SoLoMo" hasn't been logged into your marketing vocabulary, it's time to add this term to your arsenal. SoLoMo is an acronym for the integration of social, local and mobile marketing efforts. For example, tracking your customers' real-time location via smartphone and feeding them a stream of information based on their location and interests. Just last night, I was hit with a SoLoMo marketing campaign. I was doing some shopping in the early evening, and the American Express app sent me a push notification with a meal deal at the Panera across the parking lot. They hit me at the right time, with the right deal, and I bit. Who wouldn't want a free cookie? As you can see, SoLoMo is more than just a buzzword, it's a path to capturing local customers where and when they want to buy. In this article, we'll break down SoLoMo to ensure that your marketing efforts are taking advantage of today's top trends in social, local and mobile, and we'll give you strategies you can use to successfully integrate all three to drive traffic and sales. SOciAl (So) As of September 2013, 73 percent of online adults were engaging with social media 1 . Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Yelp and other socially driven networks give you the power to communicate directly with your customers. While reaching your consumers via these social networks may seem as easy as a few clicks of a mouse, actually creating a connection and driving conversation with your customers can be an incredible challenge. Who wants to be sold to every time they check Facebook? The key is to say less and show more. Instead of just throwing up a post about this weekend's sale, think about creating content that will drive engagement. What would make you hit "Like" or "Share"? You can run a contest to drive engagement by doing something as simple as asking your customers to share vintage pics of themselves on rider mowers. Then, offer prizes for the pics that garner the most likes and shares, and offer everyone who engages with the campaign an in-store spiff. You should be engaging fans on your social media channels with relevant, fun, interesting content, while also soliciting your best customers to post online reviews of your products and services on Google+, Yelp and other online directories. Some dealers even offer an incentive to motivate their customers to take the time to write a testimonial such as a small gift or discount in return for the positive feedback. lOcAl (lo) Recent research from the Pew Research Center's Internet Project gives us insight on three major aspects of how location figures into how we navigate our digital world 2 . • 74 percent of adult smartphone owners (ages 18 and older) say they use their phone to get directions or other information based on their current location. • Among adult social media users (ages 18 and older), 30 percent say that at least one of their accounts is currently set up to include their location in their posts, up from 14 percent who said they had ever done this in 2011. • Some 12 percent of adult smartphone owners (ages 18 and older) say they use a geosocial (a.k.a. location based) service to "check in" to certain locations or share their location with friends. Among these geosocial service users, 39 percent say they check into places on Facebook, 18 percent say they use Foursquare, and 14 percent say they use Google+. Take advantage of your customer's By Brad Smith Image ©istockphoto.com/ jamieroach SoloMo: Integrating Social, Local and Mobile marketing SoLoMo is an acronym for the integration of social, local and mobile marketing efforts.