As mobile proliferation shows no sign of stopping, businesses must harness its power if they want to grow. But how do you bring mobile into your digital marketing mix, and how do you maintain a consistent brand experience across devices?
The mobile phone started life as something fairly innocuous, a tool to help us make and receive calls on the go. Over the last thirty years or so, this little device has grown to be so much more!
Think about it, how do you check the weather, the news, and your daily schedule? How do you read your emails and reply to a few on your way to work? How do you book a table for dinner at a new restaurant, or browse through offers related to your next family holiday? Obviously, through your phone!
And you're not alone, an increasing number of mobile owners use their phones an average of 85 times a day (about 5 hours daily), and that's just for someone with 'normal consumption habits! Mobile internet traffic accounts for over half of all internet traffic, more than desktop computers and tablets, and 56% of all emails are now opened via a mobile device!
So why, when we know the phone is so important, is mobile marketing not at the forefront of marketing activity?
Understand mobile design
For some people, the reason why mobile may be a secondary consideration is that you need to consider what your content looks like on a smaller screen. You don't want to spend ages crafting a glorious web page to then see it squashed into a blur of incomprehension on a tiny, vertical screen.
But with mobile being so prolific, website providers, email marketing software, and social media platforms have all made life much easier in this regard.
The majority of the things you see on the internet are now built to be mobile responsive, meaning that they scale to fit lots of smaller screen sizes. Most of the time you don't even need to consider building an alternative template for a mobile device, as the systems will just move bits about for you to make them fit in a way that is easy to read and engage with.
You will also find that the majority of platforms will have numerous options available to you to control the look and feel of your site or email on mobile, minimizing the associated work of creating a uniform brand experience across devices!
Tips for embracing a mobile-first approach
Mobile is here to stay so we need to embrace it as much as possible. Follow these tips which will help you be competitive in the technologically growing world!
Provide a great first impression
The battle for consumer attention starts when an email lands in an inbox (along with loads of others) or when a person navigates to Google to look for a product or service that you might be able to offer.
Be sure that your mobile presence is making a great first impression by thinking strategically about what your audience will see first, regardless of what device they are using.
Focus on from names and subject lines in emails (always do a spot of A/B testing to prove you hit the mark too), taglines and meta descriptions for the web, and tailor them to your ideal audience.
Make it easy and quick to read the relevant information
Once you've got your audience on your site, or in your email, make sure you get to the point and quick.
Research says that a reader on mobile spends no more than 3 seconds scrolling to decide if the content is interesting and relevant to them. With this in mind, consider the layout of your digital marketing. How many scrolls before you reach a call to action?
With such a short attention span to capture, you need to adapt your content and present it in a way that means they don't lose attention. Shape your message to provide essential information quickly and make calls to action and landing pages do the heavy lifting.
A quick moment on email
With email in mind, make sure that you keep the content short, sweet, and to the point. Focus on just one topic per email and make it easy for your audience to consume the message quickly.
Keep the subject lines short and catchy
Personalise the content where possible
Put important keywords and phrases upfront
Stay clear and simple
Make your call to action visible and central to your message
Think in 1 column
Remember earlier I mentioned that there needs to be a different design for mobile than on desktop? Well, the most important one is that on mobile everything shows in a single column. So make sure when you craft your site, email, or other digital real estate, that it can easily transform into a single scrolling page!
Organise your content with the most important elements to the audience upfront. Considering the mobile user experience will mean that you don't need your audience to scroll continuously to get to the good bits! Ideally, try and keep the content to a single thumb swipe!
A picture's worth a thousand words...not so much on mobile
While we're considering our one-column layout, also think about those beautiful images you've got littered about your desktop experience. Should you include images on your mobile versions of pages and emails? The answer, like with all marketing questions, is seemingly; it depends.
What does it depend on? The importance of the image and what it's communicating really. For example, if you're introducing a person, having their face is likely going to enhance the audience experience with that content, but if it's just filler to make a page look nicer or to separate content, perhaps it's not needed in the mobile world.
Images can be easily deactivated for mobile but remain visible on desktop versions of your site or email. Avoid using them to save space in the scroll and balance with text by keeping the image size smaller, and the text size larger.
Tell your audience what to do next
It's really simple to optimise your content to accomplish your outcomes, regardless of the device your audience is using. You can increase website traffic, make people attend events, get people to buy or contact you, etc. All it takes is persuasive copy and an effective call to action!
The main purpose of any content whether on desktop or mobile is to provide a conversion. A call to action (also known in the business as a CTA), is the goal for the content. What do you want the people landing on your content to do once they have consumed it? Whatever that is, that's your CTA!
And as we know that mobile users have even less of an attention span than a goldfish, don't hide the CTA or bury it at the bottom of a long old piece of writing. Make it obvious to make it work for you!
Still unsure of mobile?
If you're looking to grow your business through digital marketing but aren't sure where to start or don't have the resource to dedicate, get in touch with me to discuss your requirements and see how I can help.
Email: rachel@baines-moore.co.uk
Text: 07507070032
And why not check out more hints and tips related to marketing your business on social media.
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