You are probably sick of hearing that mobile-friendly websites are important to businesses. But even though we all heard it, many still do not see how important it really is.
Before we go over why is it is important I want you to think about how you use your mobile, how does your partner, your kids, your friends, the teenager three doors down from you? Do you read your emails on your phone? Look for prices? Look for someplace to eat? How about to answer a question? Where do you use it, in your living room? At the Office? In a store?
If you answered yes to any or all of those questions you are using your phone like most of the mobile market. If you answered yes that means your business should be not only visible but also user-friendly and innovative on mobile platforms.
Mobile And Your Customers
With most people answering yes to the questions above it is important to understand what that usage means to you as a business.
First it means the market is large, a key point of communication with your target audience, with a perpetration rate of 76% of the overall US population alone (eMarketer). This also means that your audience is reachable 24/7, connecting with you as they like. Spending over 3 hours a day on mobile devices, and only 20 minute of which are on Social Media. Canadians are no different, with spending 63% of their digital time on mobile devices according to comScore.
When looking at their behaviour for business interaction we can see that 56% of traffic is mobile (Similar Web). With 3 out of 4 shoppers conducting product searches on mobile but buy on desktop with a global conversion rate of 3.89 on desktop and 1.43 on smartphones.
Mobile Optimized Website: Mobile And Your Site
In November 2016 Google announced on their webmaster blog that they would be changing their ranking algorithm to look at a site mobile first and base the ranking off that user experience instead of desktop. This means that though Google will still keep the index system as a single index for websites and apps they will judge you on your mobile site only.
Almost a year later and we see that Mobile First is almost mainly used for Global Google indexing. But what does this mean? In the basic overview it means that all the elements that were important on your desktop are important on your mobile site. Site load speed, content, images, backlinks, structured data, robot.txt, mobile sitemap, canonical links, webmaster verifications, etc.
If your mobile site it slow, low on content, missing SEO elements, or not even mobile friendly you risk losing ranking and thus traffic on both mobile and desktop searches. According to McKinsey & Company, “Google says 61 percent of users are unlikely to return to a mobile site they had trouble accessing. And, even worse, 40 percent visit a competitor’s site instead.”
Mobile Marketing: Mobile And Your Marketing
Mobile marketing is a large topic. It covers mobile only techniques like SMS or beckon pushes, but also more traditional digital medias like search ads, video, or email.
For now, we will talk about the more traditional media. Much like a mobile site vs a desktop site the delivery of an ad experience can be customized for the platform. Within Adwords, mobile can have call-only ads, ads that allow you to feature a phone number and connects with “call” directly. For YouTube or Facebook video ads the file type and size can be different from desktop to mobile delivery. With Instagram (a mobile-only platform) you can interact with ads and purchase. Emails too should be optimized to be read and interacted with on mobile, like your site.
eMarketer claims that “emails worldwide (55%) are opened in a mobile environment in 2017, significantly more than either webmail (28%) or desktop (16%)”. And that “there will be 248.2 million US email users this year, equating to a penetration rate of 76.0% among the overall population. Those figures are set for marginal increases to 266.3 million users and 79.0% penetration by 2021.”
With these facts, it is no wonder that email remains a favourite media for US marketers according to Data & Marketing Association (DMA) and Demand Metric, with a study finding that 88% of marketers from 9 different industries rely on email for their customer communication. With the fact that “nearly 45 percent of all marketing emails today are opened on a mobile device” (McKinsey & Company) it is imperative that mobile is thought of first when building not only email campaigns but your whole marketing strategy.
Looking at e-commerce, it is projected that 60% of visits will start on mobile devices by the end of 2017, and mobile will be responsible for 24.4% of profit.
Bonus
Digital Marketing creative like all marketing is based on human senses. These senses are a mix of sight, hearing, and emotions. With the advancement in augmented reality sight has advanced to real-world placement, but now we can also influence the creative to customer relationship with touch. Like the immersive experience of 4DK theatres mobile ads can now use vibration to enforce an ad.
Immersion has showcased their new TouchSense® Ads that helps to create a brand experience like no other with tactile interactions.
As a business, it is important to be mobile first for your audience but do not forget desktop for your sales and conversions.
