Article Contributed by Beata Green
With the increase in the number of mobile devices, their importance grows as well. Just think – the number of mobile devices already outnumbers the amount of people. By 2020, half of the world’s population will have access to the Internet from their mobile devices. This fact urges businesses to implement a mobile strategy and adjust it to their needs. Yet, for a large percentage of companies, mobile strategy implementation is nothing more than just building an app and a mobile version of the website. But today, it’s not about apps, devices and screen sizes. Instead it’s about increasing the accessibility of your brand.
Econsultancy has surveyed that 31% of European companies claim that they have a mobile strategy. But unfortunately, the majority of them do not understand the real meaning of it. To get their mobile strategy off the ground, it’s first of all necessary to figure out what it encompasses and what it actually is.
Mobile Strategy Described
Today’s smartphones are more powerful than computers from just a few years ago. However, this power is mostly used for social media, e-mails, games or web browsing. Building a mobile strategy is about understanding how to use this power to your best advantage. Its goal is to build solutions that help you provide faster and better service. Overall, it’s about building the connecting bridges between you and your customer whenever your business model allows for it.
In other words, a mobile strategy is part of a business strategy. We will outline the components of a successful mobile strategy and what companies should do to make it work:
- Suitable mobile environment
Your actions at this stage:
Depending on your business model, the choice of mobile environment will vary. It explains why building an app is a perfect and cash-generating idea for one company, while a complete disaster for another. Before you decide to develop an app because it sounds like a cool idea, analyse your market, the value you can bring and the ways of monetizing your app. Frequently, building a mobile website and customizing it to popular resolutions is a more reasonable option for your business, considering its budget and priorities.
- A model of interaction with mobile users
Your actions on this stage:
Find the ways your customers wish to hear from you. Tailor your mobile campaigns and ads to your specific audience in order to have interactive dialogues with them. It requires designing campaigns that are suitable for smaller screen sizes and crafting messages that are short and effective. Findings have shown that mobile ads are 5 times more effective than internet ads. Also consider QR code marketing, which helps local businesses make their sales grow by up to 30%.
- Analysing and understanding the habits of mobile users
Your actions on this stage:
It has been estimated by Pew Research Center that 67% of smartphone owners check their devices for any alerts and messages even if they don’t hear any notifications. Companies should take this into account and use this chance to attract their attention. In this digital era, it’s important to take a very close look at the habits of your customers, their schedule and preferences. Make sure you appear right where they spend most of their time when using their mobile devices – in their e-mail inbox, social media or hit them with app updates, special offers or discounts.
Over 60% of Google searches are related to a specific location. Further analysis shows that companies that launch mobile ads with a specific location have a 20% increase in conversions.
- Analysis of new mobile technologies
Your actions at this stage:
Mobile commerce is growing at an enormous pace. New payment system innovations, security systems and other mobile solutions urge businesses to be up to date with all the inventions they can use for their competitive advantage.
- Engagement analysis
Your actions at this stage:
Mobile strategy metrics are very important from the very early stages. There is nothing worse than investing money in something that doesn’t bring you any results. Even insignificant but gradual results should be tracked for further analysis and strategy enhancement.
If you think that connecting mobile devices to the Internet is not the most major breakthrough in the past 10 years, think again. The mobile revolution is the fastest-growing technology area. It’s expected that by 2017, the market for mobile games will reach a value of $40.9 billion. People are increasingly willing to buy more through their mobile devices. Just look at how much mobile strategies change traditional business strategies:
- Brands have reduced the expenses on call centre servicing and spend more efforts on attracting customers to their mobile apps.
- The market is completely ready for such changes. Over 70% of survey participants claimed that they have already replaced traditional channels with mobile apps.
Final Thoughts
What you should understand is that implementing a mobile strategy is a multi-step and time-consuming process. To compete in the environment of today’s mobile revolution, you definitely need to get it off the ground – gradually and persistently.
Is your business ready to reach mobile markets? We are curious to know what steps you are planning to take to make it work. Please share your thoughts in the comments.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Beata GREEN is Director of HeadChannel Ltd., London based bespoke software development company. She is responsible for overall strategic direction and overseeing the company’s continuing growth, building closer client relationships and maintaining best working practices. She enjoys brisk country walks with her red fox labrador and then relaxing in front of a TV crime drama with a glass of red wine.