Back
Knock, Knock: Mobile is Calling |
|
Consumers are increasingly purchasing smartphones, and we have good reason to pay close attention when mobile comes knocking at our website door. Several reports on mobile have revealed the importance of mobile for your 2010 marketing plan. The questions that so many of my clients are now asking include: "Who is really using Mobile? And how do I develop for all these different phones?"
Eye For Travel recently provided insight into the mobile audience:
- There were more than 23 million smartphone users in the United States in 2008.
- The Global market share is at least 3.5 billion smartphone users and growing every day.
- Of Smartphone users in the US, 47% are female and 52% are male.
- More than 50% of smartphone users are in the 25-44 age range with the 45-54 age range the next largest segment. Specifically, the percentage of smartphone users by age range looks like this:
- 25-34 – 29%
- 35-44 – 25%
- 45-54 – 18%
- 55-64 – 13%
- US smartphone users are weighted toward the $100K+ income bracket with 39.5% of smartphone users falling within this segment.
Which Phones are Dominating?
Regarding the phone models themselves, the statistics change every month, but iPhone and Blackberry are on the top of the smartphone list.
- iPhones were more than 15% of the market in late 2008 with substantial growth each month
- Blackberry currently has approximately 14% of the market
"Interactive marketing will represent 21% of all marketing spending in 2014 as marketers shift dollars away from traditional media and toward search marketing, display advertising, email marketing, social media and mobile marketing."
Forrester - US Interactive Marketing Forecast, 2009-2014
Rest assured that after the gift-giving-holidays, the data will shift again. Your friendly cell phone manufacturers are counting on it! Notice how many Verizon and AT&T commercials are suddenly running?
Now, on to developing for this mobile market.
"Sniffing" out the Phone and Delivering the Right Website
The phone your customer uses controls the format of the information he/she will see on your mobile site. Browsers for phones vary based on brand and model. By knowing which browser the phone is using, you can control what your consumer sees and experiences on your mobile site.
A quick history of mobile browsers: A phone mobile browser is a unique browser that is optimized to display Web content most effectively for small screens on portable devices. Early mobile browsers required that visitors view a "stripped down" website- a simple site with text only. Now, many mobile browsers can handle more recent technologies such as cascading style sheets, JavaScript, and AJAX- This means that many smartphones can view graphics.
Even better, iPhone and newer Blackberry model browsers can read your standard website! One exception though, none of them yet support Flash (though phone browser developers are promising upgrades next year.)
Utilizing "Sniffer" Technology
With the growing smartphone population, the old adage of developing for the lowest common browser is no longer applicable. Yet, to develop a website that looks good and navigates well, we must still take extra steps.
We must turn to "sniffer" detection technology to determine which phone browser is requesting your mobile website. (Mobile sniffer detection is the same server-based technology that determines which computer browser is requesting a connection with your website.)
Once we know which phone (mobile) browser is accessing the site, your website server can instantly direct the browser to the version of the site that best performs on the customer's phone. Using sniffer technology, we can deliver a version of the site for the older phones and for the newer phones.
And, even though iPhones can deliver access to your website, users may still want a sleeker, faster loading version of the site. Sorry Safari! But I still crave websites that are easier to use on my iPhone. Loading the "real" website is still cumbersome for the clumsy-fingered.
It isn't difficult to develop for multiple browser support. Of course, the browsers are a moving target. Each year there are new browser versions and new software built into these phones. So, all of us who had a mobile site built a year ago will need to reconsider the emerging phone market of today. Still, not expensive or difficult to do.
So now your next question may be: How do I reach all these mobile users with my site?
Mobile advertising has click through rates as high as 15%, so clients and advertisers are standing at attention and ready to launch their next mobile campaign – or first campaign as the case may be for many! Next month, I will write about the opportunities and successes of mobile advertising and some interesting mobile Apps.
Back
Please tell us what you think or let us know about other resources on this topic by posting a comment below.