By the end of 2010, it’s expected that smartphones will represent 50% of all mobile phones on the market, up from 11 percent in 2009.
- Mobile data traffic will roughly double every year between now and 2013.
- One billion consumers already have access to 3G wireless connections or better.
- In the U.S., the time spent viewing video on a mobile device is already approaching the time spent viewing video online at home or work.
These statistics show continued acceleration in the mobile market and create incentive for further experimentation and innovation. To create an effective mobile strategy, consider these 3 elements: business objectives, content type, and existing customer behaviors.
1. Business Objectives
Clearly define your goal for mobile publishing. Are you trying to extend brand awareness? Are your customers demanding mobile access to your content? The answers to all of these questions help define audience expectations and will inform the availability, functionality, and performance quality of your mobile offerings. A successful mobile service must make content available no matter where or how a consumer attempts access. Maybe you were a first-mover in the iPhone app market, but is your content available for the consumer who just bought the latest Android handset? Equally important, does your delivery system scale to ensure that content performs well for consumers in remote geographic locations or areas of heavy network congestion?
These concerns may be overstated if you’re offering limited content, or if your mobile fare is a free addition to broader online services. If you can’t sustain quality and performance, you can’t extend brand equity, create new revenue opportunities, or meet any other considered objectives. It’s too easy for someone to click away to a competitor’s site with more advanced mobile publishing.
2. Content
Is your content best viewed in the context of other relevant information, or on its own? Does it require long viewing sessions, or short? Does your content need to be encrypted, or is it freely available? These questions help determine the best delivery platform for your specific needs. Depending on type, content may be viewed in a mobile browser or via a standalone mobile application. If in a browser, there is limited standardization across mobile devices and operating systems. Publishers need to choose whether content should be streamed or downloaded, a decision that rests on factors like mobile broadband availability and content protection needs. All of these factors impact the user’s experience and should be addressed before launching a new mobile service.
3. Customer Behaviors
Mobile usage is often the inverse of PC usage patterns. People use their mobile devices to view video when there isn’t a computer available. Regular online usage patterns help illustrate the possibility of traffic spikes and how such spikes may impact the consumer playback experience.
Predicting customers’ mobile behavior is critical to determining how much content to publish, what types of content to provide, and when content should be updated.
Javelin’s mobile software from Back40 Design relays information so the user doesn’t have to zoom or click through lots of different pages. The content is concise and buttons are large enough for the finger or thumb to find them. The software places two large buttons at the bottom of each mobile page – one for a map and the other to access the phone number. If mobile users still want to access the full website for more information, they have that option with a link on the mobile site.
To find out how to get a mobile version of your website, call JR Ross at (405) 478-4080.