New research indicates that a surprisingly large number of small businesses do not have plans to optimize their website for mobile in the near future. While it may not be expected, this certainly indicates an area of opportunity for savvy small businesses that are embracing the trends and building mobile web sites for their business.
TransFirst and ControlScan’s new report titled “Small Merchants and Mobile Payments: 2013 Survey on Technology Awareness and Adoption”, indicates that almost half (49 percent) of ecommerce merchants are aware that their websites are not optimized for mobile environments and that 17 percent didn’t know whether or not their websites are optimized for mobile or not.
This is where the opportunity comes in. While consumers have embraced mobile and the use of the mobile web, we see that just 31 percent of multi-channel businesses have a mobile web site for their business. Unexpectedly, only 37 percent of small businesses are either in the process of creating mobile web sites (15 percent) or plan to create a mobile web site in the next year (22 percent). The rest have no plans to take advantage of this rapidly growing market. 21 percent are ‘somewhat interested’ in mobile optimization and plan to maybe do something within the next couple years, 29 percent have no plans to optimize in the foreseeable future and the final 13 percent are unsure.
“Business owners who aren’t planning on creating a mobile optimized web site need to get there” said Kimber Johnson, managing director at Vanity Point. “Small businesses need to embrace these trends and guide their business towards growth and increased revenue.”
Clearly mobile optimized web sites offer huge opportunities since consumers have been so quick to embrace their use and small businesses have struggled to adopt them. Businesses willing to give the customers what they want will reap the rewards.
In a recent study by International Data Corporation, they conclude that number of smartphones to be sold around the globe in 2013 will surpass the sales of basic feature phones. The massive growth of these devices highlights the need for businesses to have a solid plan for mobile application development (on both of the major platforms, businesses can’t ignore either iPhone applications or Android applications) and a mobile web site.
Sales of smartphones will increase 32.7 percent for this year over 2012, with forecasts from the International Data Corporation, predicting 958.8 million units to be shipped, compared with 722.5 million units in 2012. The decline in smartphone prices is believed to have been a major factor driving growth. In 2011, the average smartphone price was $443, by 2012 that number dropped to $407 and in 2013 it is predicted to finish at about $372. In the future it is expected that prices will drop even further and by 2017, the average smartphone price is forecast to drop to $309.
International Data Corporation predicts that smartphones will account for 52.2 percent of all mobile phone shipments by the end of 2013. Ramon Llamas, a research manager at IDC, even was willing to describe 2013 as a “watershed year for smartphones.” An interesting trend is that nearly two-thirds of all smartphones bought in the world in 2013 will be purchased by people in developing countries, says the IDC, whereas this number was just 43% in 2010. This is assumed to be driven by price reduction as well. “Smartphones have become increasingly common in emerging markets and it is often the first affordable means of computing for these markets,” said Ryan Reith, IDC program manager. “These are markets where average personal income is far less than in developed markets, and therefore vendors have been forced to create smartphone computing experiences for the low end of the market.”
Clearly businesses must address the shift occurring the market and look at the demographics of their target market. Mobile applications and web sites are increasingly important with each new year as we see smartphones continue to proliferate the market.
Right now roughly 57 percent of the US population has a smartphone and this number is estimated to grow about 68 percent by 2017 (IDC Research Report 2013). If you look at a recent study by Cisco, they estimate the mobile internet will grow 66 percent each year over the same time frame. It’s pretty obvious to see why everyone is talking about mobile and mobile applications. Mobile offers tremendous opportunities when it comes to marketing because consumers are increasingly using their phones to research products and services.
A company with a solid mobile presence will see a huge difference in their sales. Therefore, we here are some key items that you should look at when approaching your mobile app or web site.
Focus on User’s Behavior
Consumers with smartphones are a group who are not only eager to buy, but also use their smartphone to search for information relative to the products they are looking to buy. This intent offers a huge opportunity for marketers. This intent can easily be capitalized on.
Treat Mobile as a Unique Marketing Medium
While many folks think of mobile similar to the web, the mobile experience on smartphones and tablets is much different. Mobile has completely different requirements and mobile users have completely different needs. Key to the mobile experience is the phrase “less is more”. Additionally with the small device sizes, you need bigger fields and data spread out across more pages. Remember that users don’t like to scroll down a really long page on a smartphone; they will lose interest and look somewhere else.
Geo-targeting
Geo-targeting offers fantastic opportunities to pinpoint marketing opportunities and to deliver carefully targeted content based on the exact location of the user. Geo-targeting allows you to reach the right consumers, at the right time, at the right place. To make it even better, since it’s happening on a smartphone, you can offer customers incentive to visit while users are out shopping, examples include coupons. Additionally ads can also be matched to what consumers are browsing for on their smartphone, this dramatically increases effectiveness.
Click to Call
Smartphones offer a new opportunity to connect on the go. Mobile advertising is powerful, but it’s better to take it one step further. A recent study by iAquire shows that about 70% of mobile searches lead to action within an hour. Therefore the best thing to do is to allow consumers the chance to buy right then. You can enable your ads so that consumers can directly call you by clicking on your ad.
Mobile is here and it is here in a big way. Just slapping up a quick mobile web site is not enough to capitalize on available opportunities. Mobile gives you the chance to encourage a response and persuade action right then and there. This gives you a tremendous chance in increasing sales conversions. By focusing on the behavior of mobile users and carefully designing tools to stimulate responses, mobile conversions can be significantly increased. Mobile marketing offers a massive opportunity to marketers who understand that mobile is not just another technology.