Mobile + Location: Where Will the People Go?

Working to get perfect location information into every hand is never as relevant as it is when we talk about mobile. The more customers use their devices, the more places they can go, and the more need they have to find new locations.

One of the most popular activities on mobile devices is search, especially local search. When you are out with your phone, you are likely to look up a place you are headed – for directions, for a phone number, for information about whether you can buy what you need. In fact,

• 50% of all local searches performed on mobile device
• 7 of 10 mobile searches = action within one hour
• 9 of 10 mobile searches = purchase or visit

What We Are Seeing From Businesses – As mobile and local decision making get more closely tied, how are businesses reacting? At Yext, we see three best practices from our customers:

1. Ensuring mobile location hygiene to capture the intent of local search – Mobile is not only the place where a customer searches for somewhere she already knows; accurate location information is also the way to connect to more general local searches. When businesses come up on mobile screens at the right time – on a map, in an app, or in a search engine – it might convert into the sale, or room booking, or dinner option.
2. Enabling local discovery with fresh content – For many local businesses, mobile is the key to being discovered, the key to finding new customers. On mobile and in local, people are often looking for specific information around a location near where they are – for a seasonal food item, for what's happening on Tuesday, for what's on sale. In the store, sales teams can use their devices to update their location information – from open hours to events – in real-time to keep listings fresh and relevant.
3. Differentiating with content creation – The killer feature of the smart phone is, of course, the camera, and the impact for business is that all employees can become local content creators. With the right permissioning for brand protection, adding photos and videos to business listings is often the easiest way to create immediately richer, engaging experiences right when customers are looking.

What We're Doing About It – At Yext, we are working to make mobile easy to manage for businesses in two ways:

• First, we want to make it easy to reach customers with the best location information using our Network. On mobile browsers, we connect our through 45+ publishers of maps, apps, and local search experiences and within apps environments, we work with 20+ applications, from HopStop to Foursquare.

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• Then, we want to make it easy to update and post new information – with our Android and iPhone apps. Our apps allow you to:

  • Review your mobile listings
  • Update your Featured Messages as deals and products change day to day
  • Take new photos and videos as local content and automatically upload to your profile

We have built our network and our tools to help our customers grow their businesses through local search and local discovery. By doubling down on mobile, we further our mission: to put perfect location information in every hand.

Find more information about Yext Mobile here.