“Mobile really is where everything is going and where everything is spent today,” Gary Burnett, former Facebook Advertising Exec and now COO at Flurry, a leading app measurement and ad firm.
In a recent article Top 10 Digital Marketing Trends for 2016, mobile optimization came in amongst the top ten.
Let’s quickly review our mobile discussion from that article. At this point, mobile and responsive websites should be a no brainer. For the past few years, we’ve been sprinting towards mobile dominating desktop, and we’ve passed it. Mobile has officially passed desktop browsing. What does that mean in the broader context for your 2016 marketing strategy? In 2016, a mobile-optimized website should be a default, but not a placeholder for an app. An app can (read: should) do everything your website can do. Not to mention an app is both touch screen (read: less barriers to clicks) and is an advertisement/reminder of your product that goes with your user everywhere they go.
Mobile usage in the purchasing process, from research to checkout, is on an upward trend that is not slowing down anytime soon. A few stats to back that up?
- 90% of smartphone shoppers use their phone for pre-purchasing activities
- 86% of time is spent on apps vs. 14% on the mobile web
- 25% of search queries are now on mobile
Whether you’re working on your app, planning a re-vamp, or already have a fantastic one in place, there’s one thing we recommend testing and optimizing above all else - and that’s speed. Load speed, checkout speed, and how quickly your users can find relevant info. Recent research has found that a staggering 29% of mobile users will immediately switch to another app or website if they are experiencing slowness, or can’t find what they need - quickly.
We’ve all been there. Looking up that great new restaurant but finding the mobile website too slow? Jump to Yelp. Want to make a res. at said restaurant but reservation information isn’t easily accessible, jump to opentable. Opentable isn’t showing available reservation for the time you want - back to Yelp for the phone number to give them a call.
So, how can we optimize our websites or applications to keep as many users inside your brands as possible? Here are a few tips:
- Be there in micro moments - especially when it comes to mobile. Below is a great infographic from Forrester to give you a quick snapshot of how to design micro moments. We’ll cover this more in depth in next week’s article.
- Make sure your mobile website is super simple, responsive, with an easy and streamlined checkout process.
- Your load time needs to be 3 seconds - or less.
- Know what your customers are searching for and optimize your app and website to display calls to action for those specific needs first.
- Less is more. Less clicks, less steps. Eliminate any unnecessary actions, assets, or distractions that get in the way of people performing the action you need them to take.
If you’re a small business looking to do some quick catch up in the mobile space, check out this article, How to Optimize Your Small Business
We'd love to hear your top tip for optimizing your companies mobile experiences. Just leave a comment below!