Are you an entrepreneur in the growing field of coworking businesses? Are you trying to monetize your workspace quickly and efficiently? If so, it might interest you to know that about half of all internet traffic and online purchases come from mobile devices. If you aren’t marketing your services online with a specific strategy that targets mobile device users, you’re missing out on a huge opportunity, resulting in lost revenue.
To increase revenue for your coworking space in the most efficient way, you must include mobile commerce as a part of your plan. In this post, we’ll explore what m-commerce is, its benefits for coworking businesses, how it can help you get more members for your coworking space, and how to leverage PPC marketing to put your m-commerce in overdrive.
What is Mobile Commerce?
Mobile commerce, often known simply as m-commerce, involves using wireless devices such as tablets or cellphones to conduct commercial online transactions. This includes purchasing products, scheduling and hiring services, managing online banking, and paying your bills. These transactions, of course, take place over the internet using apps and widgets created by companies to quicken the shopping experience.
The use of mobile commerce is rapidly growing across all industries. According to a study by Statista in 2022, m-commerce sales in the United States alone have already reached an estimated $431 billion for the fiscal year.
Types of Mobile Commerce
M-commerce has become such a vast and rapidly-growing industry segment that it is now a big part of most consumers’ lives. Buying products and scheduling services from an app have become a fundamental expectation of doing business from the consumer’s point of view.
That said, there are different types of mobile commerce, including:
- Catalogs
- Mobile Marketing
- Mobile Finance & Payments
- Mobile Healthcare
- Tickets & Entertainment, and
- Mobile Entertainment & Games.
Below, we will outline a few of these types and how they play their part in the heavily competitive workspace industry.
Mobile Marketing Campaigns
Every business needs a strong marketing campaign to succeed, and mobile marketing can provide a more effective way to make that happen. Imagine owning a pet store or coffee shop in a remote part of town. Using a location-based mobile marketing approach can help people find you as they pass by, allowing you to compete with larger chains located in other parts of town.
Now imagine if you could use similar methods to draw customers into your coworking space. Even if you are in a more remote part of town or away from restaurants and other amenities that might influence your business, through mobile marketing, there’s a chance you can reach potential clients who pass by near you frequently. According to a recent study, consumers spend up to 3 hours on social media platforms every day, and most of that is on their phones. You need to go where your customers are!
Catalogs & Vision Boards
You can find an example of a business using m-commerce for catalog purposes in IKEA. IKEA’s downloadable app has a full AR catalog you can access with your phone or tablet. This app lets you overlay realistic 3D models of the items in the catalog on a camera view of your surroundings, letting you preview what your space would look like if you bought that item.
This technology is fun for consumers and very useful for IKEA since it reduces the rate of returns and refurbishments and the rate of unhappy clients, improving the overall customer experience.
Wouldn’t it be great to allow your potential clients to visualize their workspace in the same way?
Mobile Finance & Payments
Setting up a user-friendly m-commerce application for accepting payments is relatively easy. All big players in the payments industry offer mobile apps to make paying easier for consumers. Most also provide easy-to-set-up APIs to integrate their payment solutions into your business’s app.
So, if you accept online wallets like Google Pay, Apple Pay, and Paypal, and even accept crypto wallets to accept payments in cryptocurrencies, you’ll make it easier for coworkers to concentrate on their work and not on how they’re going to pay you. Mobile payment solutions also allow you to easily set up loyalty rewards programs similar to how cash-back credit cards work in most developed countries like the US, Canada, and most European countries. Working with prepaid business models can also become easier if you manage payments through mobile apps.
You can even have your workspace agreements signed and dated through the app at the time of payment, streamlining the entire process for you and your users.
There are also mobile business apps that can help you manage your entire business whether it’s accounting, inventory, payroll, sales, email marketing, newsletter, landing page optimization, and more. Such apps offer you the advantage of managing your business remotely.
In today’s fast-paced world, people will often choose whatever gets them faster results. Leveraging mobile finance and payments for your coworking business will make potential customers more eager to select what you offer. This is especially true when dealing with a new customer with little time to waste.
Mobile Access Control
What if, instead of physical keys, key cards, or passwords, your clients could use their phones to unlock their workspace or gain access to your space’s amenities? This is called mobile access control, and it’s become a particularly popular trend due to the pandemic. The reason behind its popularity, especially in coworking spaces, is that mobile access control is also a type of contactless access technology which helps you avoid touching potentially contaminated surfaces.
If you think about it, it makes total sense. Very rarely does anyone leave home without their phone, but how often do we lose our keys or membership cards in the hustle and bustle of daily living? Wouldn’t this be a great perk for anyone that is frequently on the go, like digital nomads or remote workers?
Not only would you offer your clients enhanced convenience, but doing so would also reduce your carbon footprint. Being a green business will help boost your brand’s overall reputation as well as help the environment. What’s not to like?
Keep in mind that we’ve only just scratched the surface of what m-commerce offers for coworking businesses. The possibilities are endless.
The Difference Between Mobile Commerce and E-Commerce
You might wonder what the difference is between mobile commerce and e-commerce, and it’s a fair question. Both consist of selling products and services online, and both have the capability of offering instantaneous results. This is often confusing to those exploring the idea of expanding their business into an online format.
Think of it this way: e-commerce is a broader term that describes anything related to selling and buying online. Therefore, mobile commerce is actually a sub-category of e-commerce that focuses only on mobile devices and usually on in-app transactions from applications custom-tailored to each business and its clients or customers.
Mobile Commerce for Coworking Business
Expectations of digital experiences permeate nearly all industries in today’s modern age. By allowing your coworking members to interact with your brand via their mobile devices, you can help them feel more productive and improve their overall experience of using your spaces for their coworking needs. In the long run, this generates more revenue for your business.
Growing your Coworking Business through Mobile Commerce
By now, it should be clear that you can attract business to your coworking space using apps, online widgets, and tools. We have already discussed how these tools work and can be programmed and used to your benefit. However, there are other ways to grow your coworking business using m-commerce principles.
QR Codes
QR Codes are a great way to draw attention to your business. Many people would rather scan a QR code than search for a brand name online or type in a web address. Use QR codes to set up maps, informational pdf downloads, and other information that might help draw in new coworkers to your space.
Adding QR codes throughout your coworking space that link to a review request on TrustPilot or Yelp are also good unintrusive ways to build up your reputation quickly.
Airdrops
Set up automated airdrop campaigns inside your coworking spaces to share multimedia files and advertorial material. This is a clever way to educate potential customers on why your coworking space is a good fit for them and their work.
Location-Based Mobile Marketing for Coworking Businesses
Location-based marketing is one of the most powerful mobile marketing features for coworking businesses of any size. This technology uses a mobile device’s location to notify its owner about nearby businesses they may be interested in.
If someone has opted in on these notifications through an app on their phone, you can send them online or offline messages whenever they’re nearby, making it much more likely to respond.
SMS Apps can be programmed to send customers coupons and information while they are in or nearby the workspace via a branded application. In some cases, you can even program your app to send these coupons or sale announcements to shoppers who are in the location of competing workspaces, pulling their attention away from their closest option and drawing them into your business instead.
Offering Coworking Solutions to m-Commerce Businesses
A different way to integrate m-commerce into your coworking business is by providing coworking solutions custom-tailored to m-commerce businesses. This could mean anything from offering special discount prices for these types of companies to offering unique amenities they may benefit from, like an array of different mobile devices they can use to test their apps and services.
Quick Scheduling
Let’s say, Carol, a long-term coworking space customer, was planning to go on vacation with her best friend this weekend, so she didn’t book her usual cubicle by the window. Unfortunately, her vacation was canceled last minute, so she wants to keep working and take her break at a later date.
Through her coworking space’s mobile app, she can quickly check if her favorite desk is available and book it before anyone else does. This means she doesn’t have to wait until Monday morning to see if her space is still available for the upcoming week.
Cross Sell and Up Sell In-House Services Through a Mobile App
An app makes it easy to diversify and sell different services to your existing customers. Imagine you opened a cafeteria within the workspace and wanted to allow your clients to order lunch to their desks via the app. It’ll only take a quick update, and everyone will have access to your new service in a minute, all without even needing to get up from their chairs.
Mobile Commerce and PPC Marketing for Coworking Spaces
PPC or Pay-Per-Click can also be integrated into mobile marketing. In this use case, you’ll run ads on different mobile apps and pay a fee every time a user clicks on them, or you run ads that show up on mobile search engine results pages (SERPS) whenever a user searches for coworking spaces in your town, or when they look up your competition directly.
What’s great about using PPC with m-commerce is how easy it is to target the right audience, particularly for coworking spaces. People who frequently download and use productivity apps, scheduling software, CRM software, and collaboration tools are more likely to be interested in local coworking spaces than those who only run mobile games.
There are several downsides to PPC marketing for coworking businesses through mobile devices. As in most other niches, the coworking space niche is very competitive, making the Cost Per Click or CPP quite high in some cases. Additionally, there is also an issue with mobile ad fraud where marketing agencies exploit mobile devices to generate fake clicks and outright steal your PPC marketing budget.
PPC Marketing Optimization for Mobile
A study by HubSpot reveals that more people worldwide own a cell phone than a toothbrush. While this could be an alarming statistic for some, it is good news when it comes to PPC marketing and mobile marketing.
Coworking businesses are often searched for on the go by traveling professionals and remote workers looking for a change of scenery or an increase in productivity. This means that most of those searching for coworking space will do so by mobile phone.
Therefore, optimizing your PPC marketing for mobile will likely attract better-qualified leads. Among other things, optimizing for mobile means ensuring your ads are responsive to the device, i.e., they look as good on a Samsung Galaxy as they do on an iPad.
Optimizing PPC Campaigns for Mobile Voice Search
Another important aspect of mobile commerce to consider for your PPC campaigns is voice search. Voice search is growing by the minute. More people use Alexa, Siri, Cortana, and all the other AI assistants to perform searches every day. Therefore, optimizing your campaigns for mobile voice search will also help you increase their reach and effectiveness.
Use common language and long-tail keywords, and stick to local marketing areas when targeting through voice command searches. Also, make sure you’re listed in all major local and national online business directories like Google My Business.
The Bottom Line
If you are a coworking business trying to find its footing in the industry, you should not ignore the endless opportunities mobile commerce offers. From enabling different business models, empowering contactless access to spaces and amenities, and even making payments using credit, debit, and prepaid cards, as well as crypto ever easier, mobile commerce has much to offer.
There are many ways to not only draw in local and passer-by customers but also to improve the customer satisfaction of current customers and streamline the workspace rental process. Particularly when using PPC campaigns, you have the opportunity to grow your digital footprint with minimal risk and attract the kind of returning business that will ensure your long-term success.
