You Can Take It With You: Mobile Advertising

So these cell phone things seem like they're going to stick around, huh? 

The movement towards digital marketing has been happening so quickly that it seems perfectly reasonable that your company or brand may have missed the boat on a few things. Mobile typically falls to the bottom of people's priority list which is strange considering it's quickly becoming one of the most effective forms of marketing. 

Smartphones have accounted for 10% of website traffic in 2013 which may not seem like a lot, but considering that they account for around 5% in 2012, we can deduce that we're seeing a fast and substantial growth in mobile usage to interact with brands. 

Adjusting to this movement doesn't have to be intimidating. There are basic steps you can take to optimizing your online presence for mobile. 

1. Responsive Design

You ever go to a website on your phone and have to pinch and zoom around to click the tab you want and then you hit the wrong button because your fingers are normal sized and these buttons are too close together? 

That's because that site isn't set up with responsive design which takes a website and makes it so that it will have a design that accommodates mobile viewing and surfing. What's listed above may seem like a superficial complaint, but it also severely affects a user's experience with your website. 

2. Mobile Ads

Take a look at the graph below. Once again the most notable thing here is growth. Mobile is growing in its use and in user favorability towards the ads on their devices. 

3. Mobile App

Not necessarily developing your own, but making sure that you're working with the ones that relate to your business. For example, if you're a credit union and have a listing on Yelp, are you responding to any of the reviews being written? 

As far as developing a mobile app, it's not something you should necessarily hurry into considering that it is a bit more complicated than what we've talked about so far, but if it seems like something that will legitimately enhance your brand experience, definitely look into it.

A study conducted by Flurry revealed that people are using mobile apps more than they're utilizing regular web browsing. It's certainly exciting, but make sure you do your research. Your brand may not fall into the most popular of mobile app usage categories. 

I could fill the rest of this blog up with mobile stats that would shatter your smartphone screen, but it really all boils down to this: have a presence on mobile. Yes. The digital world moves a little too quickly sometimes, but it's not going to wait for you to catch up.