Editor’s Note: Welcome to our weekly Reality Check column where C-level executives and advisory firms from across the mobile industry share unique insights and experiences.
If you ever doubted the massive growth in mobile media consumption worldwide, think again. It’s predicted that the number of mobile-connected devices will exceed the number of people on earth in 2013 and there will be over 10 billion mobile-connected devices in 2017. Given this massive reach, brand marketers need to ask themselves where mobile fits into their digital strategy and then drive the behavior and actions they want from their mobile audience.
So the question becomes: what type of experience will prevent people from leaving your mobile site? It’s pretty simple – an experience that’s authentic, engaging, relevant and personalized to accommodate the different modes people are in when using their mobile devices. To achieve this, you must first assess the possible scenarios in which your customers are using their devices. What mobile devices and platforms do each of your audience segments use? Are they checking into their flights on the way to the airport directly from that device? Are they researching the product they really want in a bar before meeting friends? Are they in a store about to buy that product and checking out prices with your competitors? These are some of the questions brands need to ask before they invest in mobile.
Tapping into this psychology of your mobile consumers’ actions should be a critical step in your mobile strategy. Why? This takes out the guesswork and allows you, as a marketer, to rely on actual data when creating a valuable mobile experience. More than putting the right content and offers in front of the right audience at the right times and places, a positive mobile experience goes beyond one-time discovery and creates a long-term engagement funnel with customers.
While mobile devices offer many advanced functionalities, let’s not pretend they don’t come with their own set of challenges too. For one, they have a fraction of the screen real estate as desktop/laptop computers. That means brands are more limited in the space and content they can use to delight, inspire and engage consumers. There is also no keyboard for consumers to type – that means mobile consumers aren’t as tolerant of long checkout processes or forms. In addition, mobile bandwidth and connectivity aren’t at the same level as PCs.
Because of these challenges, more brands are getting into the responsive design game. Responsive design sites are fantastic – most marketers and consumers will agree on that. They allow brands to adapt site content to multiple devices (uninterrupted), minimize marketing spend on apps, centralize content management and improve SEO. But it cannot and should not be a brand’s standalone mobile strategy or “quick fix.”
Why do you think Amazon.com is so successful? They aren’t looking for mobile to be a quick fix or a simple “shrink and fit” of their existing online experience. Not only does Amazon’s mobile experience alleviate customers’ impatience, but they also fully support the capabilities of mobile devices. Just because one type of content, such as a click-to-play video, has a high conversion rate online doesn’t mean it will have the same success with mobile users. Given users’ limited attention spans, multitasking nature and minimal tolerance for slow experiences, being required to click-to-play a video could very well result in a lower conversions rate.
So what real damage could occur from an unsatisfactory mobile experience? A lot. One of the worst ways a brand uncover problems with its mobile experience is from customers themselves—which is usually evidenced by less traffic, lower average order values, drops in revenue per customer and significant decreases in multi-channel sales. This is where online testing is critical – it lets the brand’s marketing team define and tailor the experience on every single page to the psychology of its mobile users at specific stages of the engagement funnel. Without it, you might experience initial lifts in mobile traffic and engagement, but chances are they’ll be superficial and won’t last long-term.
While developing a positive mobile experience, think about what consumers actually have to work with when interacting with brands on the second screen. Given their smaller sizes (7- to 10-inches), it’s even more important to personalize the mobile experience to maximize the value of this key real estate. It’s your job as a marketer to guide mobile users to the final step with as little frustration and delay as possible – whether it’s checking out, booking a holiday package or signing up for a monthly newsletter. It comes down to how much easier, more productive, useful and entertaining you made the mobile experience from start to finish. Otherwise they will leave. This should tell brands that the experience directly impacts and influences loyalty in the hyper-connected digital world we live in, where consumers and their needs rule.
