Cross-channel eCommerce is the rule, not the exception in today’s multiple platforms. This often translates into online marketing driving offline sales and boosting better segment opportunities.
Interestingly, it is the traditional email marketing campaign, a recent survey has found, which still performs as a significant sales impetus, even in the age of social media messaging and mobile internet.
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Latest figures show that one in four UK adults using the internet today are aged between 50 to 64, a sure indicator of a seriously expanded demographic, which website design and marketing agencies and their business clients should be taking on board.
According to UKOM, a division of market research company Nielsen, which measures internet usage, the UK web audience increased by 1.9 million during 2009, with an additional 1 million people aged 50 or over now online, accounting for more than half of new users. The fastest growing sector on Facebook is the over-40s, although the core user is 22-45-year-olds.
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As mobile internet revs up in the decade of realtime search, visitors expect fast loading sites and instant access. Users still have little tolerance for slow loading websites, leading to time critical sales or info gathering being all too easily lost to a competitor!
There was a time when the most common reason for a slow loading webpage onto a deskbound PC was the large image. Today, website accessibility by netbooks, mobile smartphones and tablets is expected to be instant, even if a webpage is densely populated by all manner of static and moving imagery.
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Last week’s announcement that Google has obtained a patent for technology software to help identify ‘inadequate content’ is a wake up call for businesses and their web design and marketing agencies to improve uploaded content quality and focus on niche long tail search phrases.
Increasing market segmentation is being driven by a combination of consumer led search behaviour, such as the use of highly specific channels, made possible through the emergence of mobile applications and the Twitter social media platform of 140 character messaging.
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Everyone seems to be talking up mobile internet these days whilst the launch of iPhone 4 is no doubt setting many an Apple lover’s pulse racing. Mobile is predicted to be the web access king within just 36 months.
Digital media and marketing pundits are, like those notorious World Cup ‘vuvuzelas’, trumpeting in loud unison that the mobile phone will overtake the traditional PC as the world’s most used web-access device by 2013. It‘s estimated that the combined number of smartphones and web browser phone devices will exceed 1.82 billion units, also by 2013, eclipsing the 1.78 billion total for PCs.
So where does this leave the many small business owners and medium sized companies desperately trying to adjust their online marketing campaigns to the relentless tide of web technology channels and platforms?
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Predictions for mobile internet to overtake desktop internet use in just five years means it’s now time for businesses to begin online marketing campaigns that incorporate this channel. Using HTML5, mobile apps are taking off big time!
It is estimated that there are 326,000 mobile websites worldwide, compared to 148,000 iPhone apps and 24,000 Android apps. Early in 2010, a 600 percent growth in traffic to mobile websites over the past year was also reported, and just last week, a white paper predicted that web apps will soon become more practical than native apps.
So what does this mean for the business owner and his web design and marketing team, endeavouring to keep pace with the rapidly changing eCommerce landscape? The shifting focusing onto the mobile web means a company can deliver their message to all smartphone platforms, not just the one device, or even the deskbound PC, laptop or netbook.
Up to now, the mobile web has been preoccupied with the all pervasive iPhone, Android, and now even iPad apps. When looking at the mobile as a total system, marketing strategies should be built that work across all channels and devices from the very beginning. Apps, by definition, are not cross platform, but companies want to target audiences and establish their brand identity on multiple devices with minimal adaptation in a process similar to website accessibility.
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The ‘Hand Of Clod’ can be applied to quite a few individuals who score own goals when they fail to understand recipient expectations with different channel messaging platforms. A good striker knows when and how to get through.
In business, as in the social media context, knowing when and what means to get your message across is critical if your online marketing campaigns are to succeed. With a profusion of channels now available, it is tempting to use every platform, in the mistaken belief that being seen and heard everywhere will imprint your brand identity with a wider audience take up.
But if one lesson is to be learnt by business owners working with their web design and marketing teams, it is that target market audiences are more likely to appreciate your efforts to reach them, if you show that you are in tune with what they want to hear, in the way they want to hear, by choosing the right means when attempting to connect. Thus, uou are more likely to gain a desired response.
Today, the mobile SMS can takes its place alongside the email marketing message, as an effective means of getting your message through. But to succeed, ’best practice’ is demanded. The development of mobile internet means etiquettes of practice will soon be established to avoid ‘overload’ and the sense of being constantly pursued. As in all traditional marketing strategies, focused targeting must consider the most appropriate manner of delivering the actual content of the message.
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You’re all probably iSick to iDeath of hearing about iPhone, iPad, Google, Blackberry and Streak by now! A smartscreen volcano has also been erupting this year, spewing forth media phone / tablets of every size, ratio and interactive capability you can think of – just so we can always have instant access to Life, The Universe and Everything!
Here’s the thing (as they used to say!) – we’re all going to hear a lot more about mobile search, as it is recognised that we are now in the next stage of the internet revolution. The obvious ease of convenience of having all the ‘local’ information you can ever possibly need, whenever you need it, means mobile search is becoming big business! And business should be taking notice. It’s all change for online marketing and brand identity messaging!
With dedicated mobile applications now possible to be created for anything, the concept of consumer search is transformed forever!
Users search differently on their mobiles than they do on their desktop PCs. Hunting for products and services on the move means we need results with urgency when trying to locate or obtain directions to a restaurant, entertainment venue, retailer or trade counter.
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Tablet computer wars are fizzing up! News that both Blackberry and Google are set to launch their own tablet devices in 2010 in response to Apple’s iPad, signals that the large form format could be taking over and we should all be looking to optimising website accessibility.
The Wall Street Journal recently confirmed that Google plans to bring a tablet computer to market with Verizon Wireless, although details of name, manufacturer, launch date and operating system, whether Android or Chrome OSS, for example, are not yet known.
At the same time, Research In Motion, the Canadian developer of the BlackBerry smartphone has also announced it is also set to enter the tablet computing market with plans to unveil a 8.9 inch BlackBerry device later this year.
We have all seen the relentless rise of the mobile internet and the explosion of mobile applications, so does the launch of the tablets mean that predictions of the imminent demise of the deskbound PC and laptop as the principal platform for internet access are about to happen?
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News that UK web surfers have come out as the world’s top users of social media on mobile is a sure indicator that a groundswell movement is underway, putting word search and web access on the move at the leading edge of consumer behaviour.
Results of a research agency study across 14 countries and among 2,800 respondents found that 26 per cent of the world’s Internet users access social media sites via their mobile phones. In the UK, the percentage rises to 32 per cent, placing the UK top of the research study list.
It was also found that mobile users are the most intensive visitors of social media sites, logging in on an average of three times a day, contrasting to 1.5 times by other means. Mobile users also send more messages, upload photos and become actively engaged with brands.
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