Mobile Website a Must for Bicycle Retailers in 2012

Here is the top of the list for things bicycle retailers (and every other business for that matter) need to do in 2012 to keep up with the competition.  As a bicycle shop owner you need to convert your website to mobile. 

Go ahead.  Check yourself out.  Use your Iphone or Android phone and see what your website looks like on the phone.  Probably not that great or usable, and the navigation is probably impossible to use.  Google is now providing device information in the analytics.  We checked on one of our restaurant clients and 25% of all traffic to their website was coming from mobile devices.  We checked a bike shop and 15% was mobile.  Mostly iPad and iPhone, but plenty of Android, too.

So, you and I need to make our websites look pretty and useful on this fast growing way to communicate and advertise.  And there are things about the reasons for using a phone that need to be updated as well.  For instance, having an autodial feature on page one. 





I am a big fan of SmartEtailing, and I know that many of you use their websites.  As best I can tell, their mobile offering is not adequate at this time.  You may want to bug them to come up with something way more robust. 

The cost of creating or converting your existing website to mobile will vary depending on who does the work and how complex the work turns out to be, but we should be able to deliver a conversion for under $1000 in most cases.

Bike Shop Marketing To Do List for 2012

2012 To Do List for SEO, SEM, and Traditional Marketing of Independent Bicycle Retailers

It is a normal human condition to wait until the last minute to do things.  I certainly fall into the normal range in that regard.  But, at least for 2011 I am turning over a new leaf in that department.  Here is a list of goals for 2012 that I will apply to my business, and that very likely apply to every one of your businesses.  Over the next 30 days, these will be fully detailed out at in the http://www.BikeShopOwner.com portal.  In this spot, I will provide a short post on each of at least 15 strategies for 2012.

While my bike shop marketing consulting business does not generally take on project based work we are going to make an exception for two types of products over the next 90 days.  It is so critical for most of you that you have Mobile Websites and Mobile Apps, that we are going to take those projects.  The balance of the items on the list are all things that we do, but are only offered as part of an ongoing retainer.

Of course, we can only take on a limited number of new clients each year.  That is why I wrote the new book "Principles of Bicycle Retailing for the Internet Age," and created the portal at http://www.bikeshopowners.com to support and expand upon the information in the book.  At only $49.95 for the book and six months access to the portal, you can have a massive amount of invaluable information to help you do the items on the to do list yourself.

Check back every other day for more ideas for 2012.