Here are some interesting numbers from a variety of sources.
- 70% of all mobile searches result in action within 1 hour. 70% of online searches result in action in one month.
- 61% of customers who visit a mobile unfriendly site are likely to go to a competitor’s site.
- 71% of smartphone users that see a captivating TV, press or mobile advertisement will immediately do a mobile search.
- 91% of all U.S. citizens have their mobile device within reach 24/7.
- Mobile coupons get 10 times the redemption rate of traditional coupons.
- In the US, 25% of Internet users are mobile only.
(Sources: Morgan Stanley, Mobile Marketer 2012, IAB 2012, news.cnet.com, techcrunch.com, mobithinking.com)
Some of the numbers are compelling indeed. The ones which really stick out for me are (a) the speed of execution from a consumer after conducting a mobile search (b) following a successful ad a user will immediately do a mobile search and (c) users will quickly jump to a competitor if the site is not mobile compatible.
What’s not clear is whether these result in a sale for example, but the fact that users have taken steps towards a particular goal within the hour is telling. On top of this, if your online experience is not built for a mobile browser consumers will immediately lose interest, I’d dare say faster than they do when met with a badly designed website.
The entire mobile consumer experience requires a complete rethink of how you approach marketing. It’s not just a case of push advertising onto a smaller form factor or using GPS location to present coupons for the nearest shop, it’s all about the complete end to end execution.
- If you create a marketing campaign for the street but a consumer can’t access content via their mobile device then you’ve already lost.
- If you’ve created a voucher scheme with a retail partner, sent an email to the customer with the discount, but it requires the consumer to print it off to redeem because your partner isn’t geared up for mobile then you’ve already lost.
Complete end to end execution means exactly that. The entire process chain needs to be built around the mobile experience, not just the cool parts of it like marketing. Remember the quote about Google Glass ?
….what if the ads you saw were different than the person next to you? What if, like the ads you see online, they are based on a composite sketch of you created by all the searches you’ve done and the websites you’ve visited? In other words, what if you looked up and instead of seeing an ad for something you would never buy — like women’s shoes — you saw an ad reminding you of that Amazon search you did a few days ago ?
As much as this vision of marketing is appealing, if the user can’t execute the rest of the process in the same way then all that effort poured into analytics and consumer advertising is meaningless.
The future of the customer experience and marketing sits in the palm of your hand right now. Don’t drop the ball.
