Three Quick Tips for Maximizing the Mobile Experience

Every integrated marketer knows the world is going mobile. What’s surprising is just how much time people spend using mobile platforms.

​eMarketer reports that this year, U.S. users will spend 23 billion minutes monthly surfing the mobile web. (If you’re wondering, a billion minutes roughly equals 1900 years, give or take a century.) By all indications, this number will only grow.

This increasingly mobile lifestyle, also fueled by meteoric mobile-app adoption, is driving demand for a more mobile-friendly experience in both B2C and B2B markets.

What Mobile Users Really Want

A recent study* of nearly 1,100 smartphone user revealed that nearly three-quarters want mobile-friendly websites when browsing and shopping. Sixty-seven percent said they were more likely to purchase on mobile-optimized sites versus non-optimized.

Lest you think B2B companies are immune to the rising demand, think again.

One Google survey finds that 28% of U.S. B2B C-level executives used a mobile phone to research business purchases, while 21% searched similarly on tablet-style devices.

Bottom line: The time for creating a mobile-friendly site is now. If you agree, first get some ideas from the Web Marketing Association’s best mobile websites. Then, work with a reliable company to implement the following best practices:
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• Make it quick. Mobile page-loads should take only seconds. Eighty-one percent of users from the smartphone study above identified page-load speed as their most desirable mobile-site feature (followed by easily accessible directions, store hours and contact info).
• Make it simple. Simple images. Simple navigation. Simple forms. And of course, big simple buttons. Nothing’s more frustrating to a hurried user than “fat-fingering” the wrong tiny icon and being whisked off in the opposite direction.
• Make it fit. Not the “duh” you might think. Many mobile sites struggle to accommodate today’s burgeoning number of mobile-device screen sizes. Sometimes, site architecture is formatted for variable device widths, but individual page elements aren’t.

Free “Go Mobile” Website Checker

Google’s “Ready to Go Mo” website offers a “GoMoMeter” that shows how your current site looks on a smartphone—and provides best practices for creating a more mobile-friendly site.

Mobile technology and integrated marketing are officially inseparable. Check back with us often for more actionable integrated marketing tips.

*Sterling Commerce and SmithGeiger

Real Estate Transaction Coordinator