To say the mobile revolution was coming would be inaccurate to say the least – it’s already here. What started life as something of a niche phenomenon has over recent years transformed into the new way of the web and the chances of things heading back the other way are zero. For the first time, more web users are accessing the sites and content of their choice via mobile devices than standard desktop computers. And what’s more, the speed at which mobile is outpacing desktop is accelerating – we’re really only seeing the start of things to come.
For marketing consultants, the mobile revolution represents a unique challenge and a quite colossally lucrative opportunity for capitalisation. The reason being that for the immediate moment at least, vast swathes of the world’s online entities have still not quite got on-board with the mobile movement and are therefore excluding tens of millions of consumers from getting anywhere near what they’re offering. To both attract and win over this enormous mobile market, a site and those behind it need to make not only a series of changes, but also factor in an abundance of considerations as to what hits home with mobile users.
Get it right and the windfall can be huge – here’s a quick overview of just some of the key considerations to bear in mind when marketing to the modern mobile crowd:
1 – Limited Screen Space
First of all, smartphone touchscreens may be larger than they’ve ever been but 5-inches or so still is not a great deal of real estate to play with. Nevertheless, the same rules apply when it comes to getting your message across, selling your brand’s images and allowing the user access to what it is they want to get to. Ask yourself whether your site can realistically be squeezed down to suit a 4-inch screen. And if it can’t, it’s a case of coming up with a way of making sure it can.
2 – Limited Power
Also of importance is the power of the average smartphone these days as not everyone has the cash to splash out on the year’s latest top-shelf gadgets. To create a site so power-hungry it can only be fully accessed by 15% of devices in use is to effectively turn your back on 85% of the mobile market – business suicide by its very definition. Think of the kinds of processor speeds, RAM availability and screen resolution it’s going to take to access your site when going about mobile marketing efforts.
3 – Limited Time
Another crucial consideration for marketers is how to get the appeal of the site and the brand behind it across in a matter of seconds. More often than not, mobile users whip their devices out, log on, browse and log off again each time they have more than 30 seconds to kill. As such, a business has only the tiniest amount of time to get its message over and ideally instil a good amount of interest in the site visitor. Short, sharp and to the point is the only way to go with mobile.
4 – Conversational Search Terms
Voice search is becoming an increasingly popular means of browsing the web, as is the use of generally conversational search terms. So when it comes to optimisation, it’s no longer a case of simply targeting “Restaurants London” for example, but more like “Where is there a cheap Italian restaurant in Belsize Park” instead.
5 – The Power of Local
Local counts for so much when it comes to marketing to mobile crowds. The reason being that mobile web users are often looking for something in their immediate vicinity and readily available right then and there. The overwhelming majority of mobile-connected consumers now make multiple online checks while out and about before buying something or spending their money on any services, which illustrates the importance of local marketing efforts.
6 – Sharability
The most powerful content of all is that which is sharable and gets the message of your brand spread far and wide. But when it comes to mobile market, it’s a case of making sharing as easy as clicking a single button or running the risk of it not going anywhere at all. For mobile marketing, sharable content and ease of sharing are both of equal importance.
7 – Full Site Access
Last but not least, there’s little that infuriates the mobile crowd more than accessing a site via their mobile device only to find it’s a diluted version of the original with 40% of its content and features missing. It’s often extremely difficult to balance things out with both desktop and mobile web access in mind, but choosing responsive site design from the ground up can certainly help.
