“Mobile-first” and “multi-channel majority” are some of the many buzzwords swimming in the Interwebs. Before you drop your marketing strategy to cannonball fully into the mobile-first movement, let’s review how people are using smart phones, tablets and computers. Then, you can assess if you need to re-tool your marketing strategy and other mission-critical business operations.
Habits over the past few years indicate:
- 92% of 18- to 29-year-olds have a smart phone and use it as their primary device.
- Overall, people use both desktop computers and smart phones. (This is that “multi-channel majority.”) Typically, they’ll use a desktop for more detailed reviewing of information and making purchases.
- According to Smart Insights, the desktop is still important for daytime worker audiences, while tablets and smart phones dominate in the evenings.
- According to Google Think Insights, 48% of people researching future purchases on their mobile phone usually start with a Google search. 33% search on branded websites and 26% search on a branded app.
- Mobile-only networks like Snapchat will continue to grow, influencing increased mobile phone usage time.
When analyzing our clients’ website performances, we’ve often observed that more than half of visitors are viewing the sites via their mobile phone.
What does this mean? Responsive, mobile-friendly sites are a must, or else people will leave and search elsewhere. Website visitors demand and reward website performance. They are merciless — revealed daily when they give up on pages that don’t load fast enough.
According to Google, most websites don’t perform well:
- 75% of mobile sites take 10+ seconds to load.
- 53% of mobile site visitors leave after three seconds of load time.
If a mobile site is in peak performance mode, it will generate twice as much ad revenue if the site loads in five seconds versus 19 seconds.
Evaluate your marketing strategy for:
Mobile-friendly websites and landing pages. Google will continue to prioritize mobile-friendliness in search rankings. Be sure to evaluate how mobile-friendly your website, apps, and other marketing support materials are. Newer resources like open source AMP are being developed to create fast-loading, straightforward mobile sites. Talk with your web team about these resources and if they make sense for your goals.
Diverse content. HubSpot says that with the shift to mobile, long-form content such as e-books and PDF-sized content may not be as effective. Before you stop creating and sharing these materials, identify opportunities to create complementary versions of the content. For example, could you adapt a client case study into a short video interview?
Video content and animation, like explainer videos, and interactive content, such as quizzes and surveys, give people an opportunity to more effectively absorb information. Keep in mind most people are visual learners, meaning they retain information longer when they’ve viewed it versus simply read (or skimmed) it.
Research shows that video drives higher engagement, and that business-to-business-related video content is still viewed most often on desktop computers.
According to Buffer, 37% of people will watch a video all the way through – if it’s five minutes or less. Videos 90 seconds or less have a 53% retention rate, while 55% of visitors to a blog post may only read it for 15 seconds or less. Kudos to you if you’re still reading this!
Team discussion. So, where to start? As a first step, evaluate the mobile-friendliness of your current website properties. Discuss these user-experience questions with your marketing and sales team:
- How easy is it for people to find the information they’re most likely looking for?
- Is the navigation easy to understand and find?
- Can the viewer easily navigate back?
- Are the typefaces (fonts) easy to read?
- Can they easily check out if it is an online purchase?
- Can they easily find contact information, reach out directly, or complete and submit forms?
With these findings, decide if there are sensible, immediate actions to improve user experience on your current site, or if you should start over. Then, take a big step back to evaluate your overall marketing strategy through the lens of how people are using technology and where you can be to engage with them.
If you’re unsure where to start, feel free to reach out for a discussion. We’d be happy to facilitate this with you and your team.
