A mobile marketing strategy should be top of mind for every business owner, that is if you plan to reach customers!
It has changed everything and most businesses ignored the warnings and it’s costing them visitors which equate to customers and revenue.
If you’re one of those people who are spending time stressing about the colors of backgrounds and what types of graphics to use on your website to use you’re wasting your time and losing money in the process.
My grandpa had this great saying, “Don’t chase nickels when you have dollars flying out the window.”
That’s what you’re doing when you’re stressing out about things that your customer doesn’t care about or don’t impact your bottom line.
Attention spans are shrinking (3 seconds) and design is now condensed to a mobile screen. The days of ego marketing are completely over! It’s not about you (not that it ever was) it’s about your customer’s perception of your business.
Mobile Marketing and Google’s Grand Gesture
On April 21, 2015 Google released a new algorithm to give a significant boost to mobile-friendly websites. This change was referred to as #mobilegeddon in the Internet marketing world. What goes up must come down so as lots of mobile-friendly websites got a nice boost in the search, if your site didn’t meet the criteria you got the bad end of the stick.
Then on March 16, 2016 Google made another announcement:
“Today we’re announcing that beginning in May, we’ll start rolling out an update to mobile search results that increases the effect of the ranking signal to help our users find even more pages that are relevant and mobile-friendly.”
You can click here to read more about the mobile update.
Google has a great tool called the Mobile-Friendly Test. All you have to do is put in your website address and it will tell you if your website is considered mobile.
You can also check out the Webmaster’s Mobile Guide which gives you great tips on how to make your website more mobile user-friendly.
Looking at the image above you can get a great idea of what’s considered “mobile-friendly” and what isn’t. If your website looks like something on the left – you better get to work pronto!
Mobile Marketing & Facebook
Facebook has become a mobile-first company. They have done a better job of capitalizing on the move to mobile than any other major internet company. They announced in the quarter ending September of 2015 that mobile advertising made up 78% of their advertising revenue. (!!!)
Mark Zuckerberg made a request to all the product designers and engineers: ‘When you come to have a product review with me, you have to present a product that is suitable for mobile, that’s mobile first,’ Jayne Leung, Facebook’s head of Greater China, quoted Zuckerberg as saying.
Facebook lately has been making so many changes, as a marketer I’m excited and completely stressed at the same time.
It’s virtually impossible to stay on top of it all and still run my practice! I plan on writing a guide to some of the changes if my head stops spinning long enough!
Mobile Marketing Impacts Email Efforts
Let’s face it, your mobile phone gets more love and attention than your spouse does! You’re touching it constantly!
In fact rumor is 80% of smartphone users check their phones within 15 minutes of waking up.
Do you fit this criteria? I will fess up right now, I do!
A whooping 68% of all emails in 2015 was opened on mobile devices .
Email can drive traffic to your website! It can even encourage people to hit the purchase button!
BUT…
Your emails need to be easy to read across mobile devices.
FACT: Only 61% of marketers optimize their emails for mobile devices.
Big shout out to Anna Hoffman at Traffic Generating Cafe for this great information.
The millennials are leading the pack and making the way for the mobile boom! All three of my 20-something kids use their mobile to do their banking, pay their bills and shop!
It’s happening whether you’re on board or not so it’s best to get with the program! Are you ready? Test your website today to make sure it’s good for the journey!
Thanks Tammy. You’ve pointed out some really interesting statistics, which I haven’t taken into consideration in my own marketing, such as 68% of smartphone users check their emails on their phone. My website is mobile friendly, however personally I don’t like how it’s displayed on the mobile, so perhaps I should look into updating this.
Hi Kelly thanks for stopping by and checking out my blog! Tammy
Another great post here Tammy! But, I’m glad to have found this before we got up and started and would have to completely redo everything. If we can get it done the first time, and correctly….that’d save us so much time. And hopefully bring in revenue much quicker!
Ana you got that right! It will definitely happen much quicker! Thanks for reading! Tammy
Another thing we’ll be working on, and it is a surprise that you actually still see some websites that aren’t mobile-friendly. Though most people do have a computer or laptop, many, many access internet via mobile. And I know my wife won’t shop at a website if it hasn’t been optimized for mobility. You have to go with the flow…..especially if you want to attract and keep customers.
That is exactly right JD is all about attracting and CONVERTING customers and we have to make it easy for that to happen. Thanks for stopping by! Tammy
These are great points! We as a society basically live on our phones, so it’s a good medium to reach out to people with. The last company I worked for used the mobile route to marketing and it helped us tremendously!
Hi Tara! Thanks for stopping by and reading. Cheers! Tammy
Hi Tammy,
Thanks for the great post! Facebook is definitely one of the innovative companies to put priority on their mobile website, and I think it has done wonders for them. Formatting emails for mobile use and marketing is a great idea, especially with the statistics you provide. I will definitely incorporate mobile-friendly email campaigns to my list of priorities now! I think that mobile marketing via social media is a great platform to go to, since all generations of people are hopping onto it!
Yes agreed! Thank you so much for stopping by!