Part 3 of our 4 part series in the social, mobile, local marketing trend and how small businesses can quickly benefit from it.
Check out Parts 1+2 –> Get Social, Think Mobile, Spend Local & Empower Your Employee

Your customers are your advocates. They are your ‘free’ marketing, although you have to do many things to earn their trust. For small businesses, your mobile marketing– apps, social networks — is a big opportunity to integrate and push customers to your social media pages for great unique content and exclusive deals.

Consumers these days want information, lots of it, and very quickly. In order to trust and follow a brand or business, customers need an emotional connection with them. Customers love to be empowered and tell all of their friends on Facebook, Twitter and foursquare the great deals they receive because they are the “Mayor.”

With any small business in a niche market, your customers have a certain mindset. They are looking for something to do around town and something to purchase. With geolocation apps, the growth and influence of mobile recommendations/reviews by their friends, family, or strangers can greatly effect who decides to enter your doors.  How does your in-store experience stand up against your competition? Are there a bunch of bad reviews on Yelp? Is somebody claiming that your store has the worst customer service ever? This is how your word-of-mouth marketing can be dispersed, and your web marketing strategy diminished.

Your employees need to have a mindset to develop relationships with every customer they come in contact with. This will build trust and create customer loyalty unlike any advertising or radio spot. Empower your customers to market your business for you: “Bring a friend, check-in on foursquare, receive 10% off!”

They support you because your store, restaurant or product represents a specific attitude/characteristic they can relate to. With this connection, they will become your biggest advocates online and offline, by giving you good reviews on Yelp, per se, and telling their friends in-person and on their social networks how great your business is. Way more valuable than a high-budget ad campaign, huh?