Mobile Marketing Blog

Which is better, to make a mobile app or mobile website? Both bring their own benefits and tradeoffs, and can be leveraged in different ways, depending on your organization's goals. That said, mobile websites have one unique advantage it's important to consider.

The mobile web's growth has understandably taken people by surprise. Including, frankly, some who should know better.

Imagine you are creating a marketing campaign for a large brand, designed to encourage bored commuters standing around a train station to visit a web site. It makes sense that site should be well optimized for smartphones. Right?

Market analysts, commentators and pundits love to talk about the mobile web. Their opinions are often based on device market share data: hard measurements of product sales and consumer buying patterns. But for the mobile web, those are the wrong numbers to look at.

It's remarkable that so many people are going online using their mobile phones - over 74 million in the USA as of last May, in fact. That's a big increase from last December, when it was “only” 64 million.

In other words, the number of Americans looking at websites on mobile phones went up nearly 16% in five months! Extrapolate that to 12 months, and it means the mobile web using population is growing nearly 40% per year - at least 38%, in fact.

What does this mean for businesses and organizations that operate online?

How many of your website visitors are using mobile devices? It depends. If your company website is not easy to use and read on mobile phones, it's going to be lower than the average. People will visit once on their phone, and never come back. If you DO have a good mobile website, it's going to be higher than average. And if you actually promote your mobile website, it's going to be higher still.

So what are the best ways to promote your mobile website? Here are a few.

MSIA is a church and spiritual organization based in Los Angeles, CA, USA. For over a decade, their website at www.msia.org served well both as a powerful fundraising tool, and in providing information and other services to their congregation. In 2009, they decided a full rebuild of the web site was in order. Being aware of the rapid growth in Internet smartphones, Web manager Deborah Martinez decided the new website must be mobile friendly.

Just how big is the mobile web? A recent mobile market report by comScore gives us the data to figure it out.

The bottom line: 74 Million American adults looked at a website in their mobile phone this past May 2010. Wow! And that number is growing every month.

You're probably familiar with using social networking tools, like Facebook and Twitter, to put a personal face on your business. Letting people know there is a personality behind a corporation is a great way to attract new customers and instill loyalty in the customers you have. But It's important to remember that not every personality is appreciated, especially now that the mobile internet is becoming the most personal form of media the world has ever seen.

“Technological convergence” is a fancy name for a simple idea: that over time, different technology systems will evolve to let you do similar tasks. Looking at mobile, device convergence means that if you can do something with a particular phone right now, you would expect to be able to do it on ANY phone before too long.

For years, mobile device convergence faced tremendous obstacles. But finally a real solution is emerging: an important technology called HTML5. Let me explain.

Will you be in San Francisco this Wednesday, July 28th? Attend the Mobile Web & Marketing Workshop! Thanks to the Small Business Administration for hosting. Admission is free, but seating is limited. Sign up here.

In Inc. magazine yesterday, Mobile Web Up founder Aaron Maxwell shared how SMBs can benefit from geolocation apps like Foursquare and Gowalla.

Most of all, evaluate how your active marketing through a geolocation service will propel business. “It's not about Foursquare or MyTown or whatever else is hot this week,” Maxwell says. “It's about what investment of a company's time, energy and resources will create the greatest value moving forward.”

Read "Get Your Business on the Geolocation Map"

Here's some news from the banking and credit union industry:

• Banks with mobile capture twice their normal share of customers switching banks - 16% vs the typical 8%
• Attrition is 12% lower for customers that use mobile banking
• 60% of younger consumers use mobile as a deciding factor when selecting a new bank

To quote Bob Hedges of Mercatus: “Making the business case for mobile banking is like making the business case for oxygen.” It really isn't an option anymore.