Every year, marketing ‘gurus’ of the day profess the greatness of the next big thing. Sometimes they’re right, sometimes they’re wrong.
While I can’t tell you with absolute certainty that mobile marketing is the place to put all of your money this year, I can tell you that more and more people are consuming content on their mobile devices.
87% of American adults have a cell phone, and 45% of Americans are using internet-enabled smartphones. 17% of these users claim that they do most of their online browsing using their phone.
There’s an enormous opportunity to put marketing dollars to work on mobile. The only question is…how?
The Challenges of Mobile Marketing
Mobile advertising is something that hasn’t yet been dominated.
Google became the gold standard in paid ads on the non-mobile web with Google AdWords, it’s highly flexible advertisement network that accounts for the majority of their revenue even today.
There’s no such juggernaut in the mobile space — which means that there’s still a large market share that Google and Apple have still been unable to claim.
By the way, they’re the ones making the operating systems for the majority of smartphones in the hands of consumers and business people today.
The challenges of mobile marketing are in both the small size of smartphone screens and the lack of standards across device makers.
The Solution
Mobile marketing may still be a growing field, but there are 3 major things that you can do to make sure that you are ready for a steady influx of mobile traffic.
1. Optimize your website for mobile devices.
This may seem like a no-brainer, but it is always shocking to see how many websites are not built with mobile devices in mind.
With device-responsive design, website visitors can find what they are looking for quickly and without having to hold the phone inches from their nose. This is the foundation for any and all mobile marketing efforts on your website.
2. Shoot for Brand Consistency
Take your responsive website further by making sure that your brand is conveyed on mobile devices. If your mobile website is separate from your full site, be sure to incorporate your logo and colors to ensure brand unity.
A mobile website should not be a limited experience; it should have all of the product images, calls-to-action, and content offers that its desktop counterpart has.
3. Design with Discipline
Any site that is optimized well for mobile devices is the product of disciplined coding and attentive design. When creating your site, we recommend adhering to the following standards:
Stay away from flash
Apple devices don’t support flash, and smartphones that do are often drained of power quickly when running flash applications or videos. Try building with efficiency in mind for faster load times and lower power consumption.
Test the site on as many devices as possible
Every site renders differently on each mobile device, so work with developers to make sure that the site works with varying iOS, Android, Windows, Linux, and Blackberry devices.
Be ahead of the curve.
It takes strong will and discipline to be above average in your online marketing. Many are trying to succeed with mobile marketing, but they’re coming up short when it comes time to actually commit to best practices.
There’s no way to know for sure that mobile marketing is the next big thing, but there’s a pretty good chance that it will grow in importance.
Build a solid platform for mobile marketing, and there’s a great chance that you won’t regret it.
“I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.”
-Wayne Gretzky