As the mobile revolution picks up speed, both big companies and small businesses are feeling the need to “go mobile.” Many are already working on this, but if you’re just getting started, there’s some good news. No matter the size of your company, there’s an easy way to get involved in mobile.
Here are my top three suggestions for success and sanity when diving into mobile.
1. Be clear about your goals
There’s no doubt that mobile is a major trend. But what does it mean for your business? Before going mobile, it’s crucial to have a clear strategy for success. This means understanding your goals for incorporating mobile into your plans or making it your main channel. Be sure you can answer these questions before taking action:
- Why does your company want to have a mobile presence? (NOTE: “Because everyone else is doing it” is not a sufficient answer). Do you want to help customers find you, make it easier for them to purchase, connect with a new segment of the market? It’s important to have a good reason for pursuing mobile in order to gauge and support the investment in it.
- Who do you want to reach via mobile? How do you think mobile can benefit your customers and your business? What opportunities and added value can mobile bring?
- What are the expectations around success? How much can you invest and how long can you wait for a return? What kind of return are you looking for?
- Are you staffed to treat mobile as a long-term effort, rather than a one-time event? Do you have a roadmap for the first year? Do you have the resources in place for success?
- What do you want to learn from your first 3, 6, 12 months of mobile initiatives? As a new channel, it’s best to structure initiatives for fast learning about what works and doesn’t with customers and for your company.
2. Know Your Audience & Think Like Them
Once you know what your company wants from mobile, you can think a little more about what your customers want and how you can deliver a great mobile experience to them. Focus on answering questions like these at this stage:
- What portion of your current or intended customers will connect with you via mobile?
- What mobile platforms and devices do your customers already use?
- What content do they currently access from mobile devices? What content and benefits can you reimagine for mobile?
- When and where is your audience mobile? What locations and times are most popular for mobile access?
- What can you offer your audience on the go or on a device that is valuable and differentiating?
3. Add Value with Your Mobile Experience
Armed with a strategy and knowledge about your audience, now you can focus on creating a great mobile experience with your company. Addressing the following questions will help ensure you deliver a positive mobile experience and one that adds value for you and your business.
- Is your website optimized for mobile? Really? Remember you will need to deliver bite-sized content to multiple devices and screen sizes so your content will need to incorporate responsive design and be tested on multiple devices and platforms.
- Do you need to create an app? If you want to leverage smartphone functions like GPS and barcode or QR scanning, you may want to create an app to deliver a more robust experience.
- How and what will your customers buy via mobile? Don’t forget to make the ask and test to make sure you do it in a way your customers understand and like.
- What are the best times to push content or notifications? Your messages can be seen as annoying and create a negative experience if pushed during busy moments or times when the message is not relevant.
- What is your test plan? Review what you wanted to learn and ensure that you can test for that. Also, always be testing to see what really works for your users regarding content, layout, timing, offers, calls to action, etc.
- How will you gather feedback? How will a user let you know if they are having a bad or good experience? How will they tell you what they want from their mobile experience with your company? Consider the help process carefully and think about mini surveys to make sure your efforts are hitting the mark.
- What can/will you measure? As with any channel, you will want to ensure your marketing is working. Consider specific measurements or proxies for awareness, engagement, referrals, sales, web traffic, reviews, social feedback, and help requests.
As you can see, there is a lot to think about before jumping in to mobile activity. But, having thought through all of the above, you will be in a great position to deliver a successful mobile experience and reap the rewards.