Reaching the mobile consumerI’ve heard this sentiment expressed by many small businesses who don’t have a retail location or even a public office location. So they’re not paying attention to what goes on in mobile. Their website isn’t mobile-friendly, they aren’t concerned with mobile advertising or with Google maps or checkin apps or SMS text messaging or anything that seems connected with “mobile”.

If this describes you, allow me to give you some compelling reasons to make your business mobile friendly.

As of January 2014 (Pew Research)

  • 90% of American adults have a cell phone
  • 58% of American adults have a smartphone
  • 32% of American adults own an e-reader
  • 42% of American adults own a tablet computer

Why your website needs to be mobile ready:

  • This year, for the first time, more Americans are using a mobile device rather than a PC or laptop to access the Internet (CNN)
  • Two out of three customers prefer accessing a mobile website over a mobile application. (KISSmetrics)
  • Nearly half of consumers say they won’t return to a website if it doesn’t load properly on their mobile devices.(The Social Media Hat)

Are you a B2B company?

  • Currently, about half of B2B vendors sell through mobile (including stores and applications), while 3 in 4 respondents plan to offer mobile commerce by the end of 2014. (MarketingCharts)
  • 65% of executives are are com­fort­able mak­ing a busi­ness pur­chase from a mobile device. (Forbes)

Why you need to advertise on mobile:

  • Mobile ads perform 4-5 times better than online ads. (iMedia Connection)
  • That’s where your competition is. Marketers spent $4.4 billion on mobile advertising in the U.S. in 2012. That figure doubled to $8.5 million in 2013; and that figure is projected to quadruple to $31.1 billion by 2017. Search advertising accounts for about half of the total. (Heidi Cohen)

Why you should care about Google maps, even if you don’t have a storefront:

  • Google My Business also serves businesses that have a service area as opposed to a physical storefront address. So you can get your business included in Google maps and let potential customers know if they’re in your service area. (Google)

How SMS text messaging coupons and loyalty programs can help you:

  • When asked if they’ve ever received a text message from a business, most people (74.90%) said Yes. (Autosend)
  • Asked if they would like to receive text messages from a business, 34.75% surveyed said MAYBE and 30.12% said YES (Autosend)
  • Asked how often would you like a business to text you weekly, over 67% said at least 1-5 times per week (Autosend)
  • Offers, coupons, rewards, announcements… all of these build loyalty with your customers who have opted-in to receive text messages from you. (Dex Media)