by Tony Vidler       

Today’s professionals know it because we are them:

Our smartphone is our life.

Is our marketing smart enough in the smartphone world though?

In little old New Zealand alone there are now more phones than humans, and 70% of the humans are using smartphones.  In fact they are using them in rapidly increasing dollops.  Our smartphones are the go to source for news, weather reports, using social media channels to stay engaged with their community of friends, finding a restaurant, researching businesses and the issues of the day, accessing our emails, and being entertained.

We see the funny memes and laugh at those poor addicted suckers…yet the first thing I do in the morning while waiting for my coffee is grab the phone, scan the emails, then check the social media notifications and start responding, and then quickly check the news headlines…and by then my coffee is ready.

All I have done up until that point is look at my smartphone (eye contact with other humans should be avoided before coffee as a rule anyway – it is a safety thing).

So what do you think future clients are doing?

More importantly, how is your marketing taking it into account?

Certainly when it comes to our website design we have to assume – and have built in – the flexible design that enables the site to be optimised for smartphone viewing.  Not doing so is simply not an option these days. If your website looks rubbish on mobile, you look rubbish.  If you look rubbish consumers will simply disengage.

Just as importantly, email has to be optimised for mobile too – after all that is where most of the customers are increasingly first opening your email: on their phone.  Hard to believe?

36% of people are reading their emails while eating a meal.

14% are reading their emails while in the bathroom.

21% are reading their emails while travelling to or from work.

…and my personal favourite of the statistics:  7% read their emails when trying to avoid interacting with another human.

The keys to getting email right for mobile are:

• Responsive design.  Research shows that mobile optimised email gets a significantly higher open rate, and a significantly higher response.

• Images are needed.  But make file sizes and image sizes smaller – anything which can reduce bandwidth, storage or speed becoming an issue for the consumer is good.

• Single column layouts only please.

• Font-size.  Big enough for the oldies (like me) to read, but not so big that 3 words fill the screen – try font size 14.

• Great subject lines or headers.  The subject line is the gate-keeper, or the bouncer on the door. It will decide who gets into the party or not.

• Click to call.  This is a personal peeve perhaps, but if checking something out on my phone and I decide I want to engage with them, and THEN I hit the phone number and it doesn’t automatically call the number then I am miffed. Turn3ed off in fact at the idea of having to commit the number to memory for the 7 seconds it takes me to type the number manually back into my own phone.  A silly thing perhaps…but it has been enough to make me dump a business choice and move on….and the next point is similar, but a different pet peeve…

• Big enough action buttons and links.  Seriously…when you have middle aged and blunt little fingers some of those action buttons and links out there are ridiculously small.  If I have to try and enlarge the screen just so I can actually get one edge of one fingernail onto your action button, then I am gone.  By the way: if I keep accidentally clicking on a bloody advertisement which pops up and dominates the screen when trying to read something on a mobile site, then I am also going to be gone.

The third of the big themes for connecting with tomorrow’s customers on mobile is to include video in your marketing.

Short duration video experiences massive engagement with consumers on mobile.  Think snapchat and vine.  Periscope.  The consumers are increasingly engaging with ever shorter video content that is NOT professionally produced.  It’s almost becoming like personalised reality television: just you and the viewer….and the consumption of video content is increasing rapidly.

Despite the tips and suggestions, the big tip on how to get your marketing right for the smartphone consumer is to think about your own mobile use.  The clients we want are actually just like us in their use of smartphones.   We are them.

Use mobile in your marketing the way you’d like mobile to be used for yourself.  That will be pretty close to how your future customers will want it too.

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