“71% of smartphone users that see TV, press or online ads, do a mobile search for more information.”
The results are amazing as to the impact that mobile has had on marketing, so much so, that despite the importance of mobile, many marketers still do not completely understand the true potential for reaching target markets through mobile.
So, what does mobile responsive mean? Simply put, it's just a website that snaps to the size of the screen of any device that you are viewing the website on.
The Disturbing Truth
Many small to medium businesses are still operating either without a website or a very outdated website that is not mobile responsive. Although it is disturbing, at the same time it is a great opportunity for SME's to be ahead of their competitors in having a mobile responsive site.
Businesses that have moved in this space, have not necessarily nailed the complete user experience of their mobile responsive website. So, although the strategy to go mobile responsive came from a place of good intent, ultimately it has missed the mark of delivering to a pleasant user experience to the target market.
The Opportunity
Its very clear, that the main opportunities are to either beat your competitors at developing a mobile responsive website or to create a mobile responsive site that has a pleasant user experience.
Improving user experience comes by carefully constructing your content with thorough content planning aligned with your marketing planning. Marketing planning is always developed with your target market(s) in mind.
Understanding the importance of planning helps you develop content and content structures with user experience at the forefront, thus encouraging users of the site to move further along the sales (or purchase) decision process.
In the recent past developing a mobile responsive website was quite expensive, required relatively long lead times to get up and generally was a tool afforded only by larger organisations.
“Up to 60 percent of consumers used mobile exclusively to make a purchase decision in the categories of telecom, restaurants, auto, and entertainment...”
The Saviour: Software as a Service (SaaS)
Today, with the advent of powerful subscription based online software solutions (such as website solutions or SaaS websites), organisations can be very tactical in delivering a websites to their target audience, relatively quickly and at an overall investment significantly lower than from the recent past.
A quick side note, SaaS stands for Software as a Service and is essentially the placement of software in the cloud whereby the user pays a subscription fee for the service, usually monthly or at a discounted annual rate.
Some of the main benefits of today's SaaS based website solutions include:
- High search visibility (onsite SEO)
- In-built CMS (content management system) with easy to update content (including images)
- Mobile (device) responsiveness for effective content viewing
- eCommerce and donation functionality
- Simple lead capture and CRM integration
- Landing pages easily created
Conclusion
It is looking more like the days of having all of your I.T experts being in house are no longer necessary, or your in-house I.T expert is more of a systems and process guru.
The SaaS based model means that small businesses can afford what was previously only available to large organisations. It also means that small to medium sized businesses can focus on their core business area.
Finally it also means that marketing agencies servicing these businesses can focus on what they do best, which is communicating to target markets at better rates.
It's a win for everyone and exciting times for the marketing industry as a whole.