Business must embrace mobile Web strategy

M-commerce emerges on the scene

A woman enjoys mobile banking with a COCO+CO. designed mobile Web page.

The next big thing is here and your relationships with customers and prospects are threatened if you don’t embrace it now.

More than one third of American adults already turn to data-enabled smartphones to surf the Web and make transactions. That number continues to grow as consumers replace mobile phones. According to Nielsen research, 55 percent of those who purchased a new phone this past spring purchased a smartphone instead of a feature phone. Users favor online content that better fits their small screens.

“From texting campaigns that enable customers to receive targeted information from brands to m-commerce platforms to help them facilitate their purchases, it is becoming critical for companies to provide the information and access customers want, using the mediums that reach them most effectively,” Susan Blue of FordDirect said, as quoted July 28 by Internet Retailer. FordDirect is a joint venture between Ford Motor Co. and its licensed dealers.

Wealthy, well-educated and younger people want you on the small screen

A Pew Internet Project report issued last month found “59 percent of adults living in a household earning income of $75,000 or more (and) 48 percent of those with a college degree own smartphones.” Pew’s study goes on to report 58 percent of Americans between the ages of 25 and 34 now own a smartphone as do 49 percent of those 18 and 24.

Consumers are most using their mobile devices during the same hours as prime time television. A study by third-party ad server MediaMind found “users surf the mobile web and apps on phones most during the early evening, between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m., and keep usage up through the night,” as reported by Advertising Age last month. “Mobile ad click-through rates are also highest between 7 p.m. and midnight, with clicks reaching a peak at 8 p.m.”

It’s not just about making content ‘smaller’

There is much more to putting up a mobile page than simply making pages smaller, and many traditional Web designers are not up to the task. Traditional Web features such as tables, graphics and video and forms must be coded differently to work on smartphones.

COCO+CO., which has been producing mobile pages since the birth of the new medium, lists just a few of many important specifications:

• Code must automatically recognize consumers’ devices, and automatically deliver properly sized content and features to both PC and phone users
• Pages must be properly integrated to support legacy systems such as existing online banking and database structures
• Designs must be fast loading even with generally slower 3G/4G phone speeds
• Content must automatically stretch, contract and resize on the fly depending on whether the phone is held in portrait or landscape orientations
• HTML 5 must be used in place of Adobe’s Flash since Apple’s iPhones do not support Flash
• Web hosts must be identified that willingly support “workarounds” for mobile device and third-party shortcomings in areas such as the installation of Secure Socket Layer (SSL) certificates

You may optionally choose to provide customers with a custom, downloadable “app,” but you’ll still need a mobile-formatted Web site.

A final reminder

The advent of new technologies doesn’t mean old marketing and corporate communications programs are obsolete. Rather, since people haven’t changed, messages and content still must be audience-centered and make an emotional connection. (For more see “New digital landscape still has rules.”)

Your targets are putting aside personal computers and laptops at home in favor of data-enabled smartphones. You must deliver content that better fits their small screens or risk losing business if your website doesn’t accommodate them.

For more information or learn if you qualify for a free mobile Web site from COCO+CO., call (978) 374-1900 or use the contact form. You may also offer comments below.

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