Last week I spoke with business owners in Columbia Falls about the impact of mobile technology on their businesses.
Tourists have lots of resources: the Internet, stuff they were mailed, travel guides, etc.
Once they get here, many of them use their phone.
Canyon Campground owner Dee Brown told me that not long ago, many prospective campers who came to town wouldn’t camp in a campground that didn’t have wireless internet.
Now, that’s all changed, she says: “They bring their own.”
They’re using mobile technology.
Even though locals don’t need an internet search to find fry bread, we need to consider how our visitors use their phones when they’re here.
We’re becoming a Blackberry/iPhone nation. Like them or not, people use them when they come to town. And they use them to try to find your business.
You may have heard of a website called Yelp. They do reviews of restaurants and business. Consumer-authored reviews. Nothing new for the web, really.
What’s different about Yelp is that they have an iPhone application (normally called an “app”). You can enter your review right on your phone, include a photo of the business if you wish, and since the iPhone includes a GPS – the exact location of the business is recorded.
What’s *really* different about Yelp’s iPhone app is that it lets you “ask it” where the nearest pizza place is and it will point arrows to the place, name it, show you the review ratings it has received and tell you how far it is to the place.
That’s great for New York City, San Francisco, Seattle or any other geeky place where every twenty-something has an iPhone.
For Columbia Falls, it might seem like a waste of time until you find out that Yelp has 4719 reviews for businesses with our zip code. 18 of them are for the Back Room.
Over four thousand. Some reviews had been written within 20 minutes of the time I was researching Yelp.
Next we talked about UrbanSpoon, another website, iPhone app combination. It’s all about finding places to eat. It has a unique slot machine interface. You shake your phone to make the slots roll and it’ll select a place to eat. Or if you’re looking for Mexican and want to spend under $20 a head, you can tell it that, shake it and it’ll suggest a place.
UrbanSpoon has 29 listings for places to eat in Columbia Falls. I’m not sure I could name 29 places to eat in Columbia Falls. They just started doing their thing in Montana, so if you have an eating establishment, I suggest going to UrbanSpoon.com, claiming your restaurant and filling out the profile.
Trip Advisor has over 100 restaurant reviews for Columbia Falls.
Every time someone from Travel Montana talks about where visitors spend their travel dollar, they always seem to say the biggest piece is spent on food.
Two years ago, I noted that Yahoo surveyed consumers and found that 73% of them looked on the net before making a local purchase of goods and services.
A change has happened since then.
1.5 billion iPhone apps downloaded. Over 30 million iPhones sold worldwide.
In the US, AT&T has activated nine million iPhones and 12 million other smartphones. At Verizon, you have to work to buy a phone without internet access.
Smartphone users frequently use the internet on their phones (searches, mostly). iPhone users average four times as much bandwidth per month as the typical smartphone user, according to AT&T.
Today, the fastest growth in internet use is by mobile devices: phones, laptops and netbooks.
In January 2009, mobile internet usage doubled vs January 2008. In June 2009, a research project showed that the number of mobile internet devices connecting per day was up 41% vs June 2008 (surveyed at 10000 points nationwide for 24 hours). In July 2009, Pew Research released a report showing that 32% of households had accessed the internet via a cell phone or smartphone. In Dec 2007, 24%. Note the difference is households.
If I-90 came through Columbia Falls, would you want your business (or sign) near the Glacier Park exit?
This mobile stuff is much the same.
Want to learn more about Mark or ask him to write about a business, operations or marketing problem? See Mark’s site or contact him via email at mriffey at flatheadbeacon.com.