There’s more to creating a mobile website than just graphics, content, and code. Making sure your site is functional and pretty is only part of the battle. The real challenges lie in ensuring that your site is intuitive and fast for every end-user. Creating an experience catered to your customers is fantastic and may develop some brand loyalty, but understanding the mobile market as a whole is the more rewarding task, allowing you to gain customers directly from competitors as well as providing for the many ways that customers choose to use their mobile devices.
How People Are Using Mobile
The idea that mobile users use their devices in “many ways” may seem confusing or counterintuitive at first glance, but it is simply a fact that your business can’t afford to ignore. The reason that it may seem strange is due to the, now antiquated, idea that there is a “traditional” and “digital” presence.
Multiple Screens
You may notice the curious use of the word “screens” where at one time there would be any one of several terms that were the opposed the idea of the physical identity of a product. This is intentional, and more accurate, in the current climate.
Your average customer is not just using one type of technology anymore, even for a single interaction with your company. When your business decides to create a mobile website this should be at the forefront of the minds of the designers. Allowing the nearly 70% of customers who begin shopping on one device and continue on another continual access to their online sessions is absolutely imperative. If your site isn’t optimized to fit their needs, three out of every five customers will go to the site of a competitor who does meet their needs because many customers feel that your company doesn’t care about them.
Purchasing Power
But it’s not all hard work and frustrated customers. Well over three-fourths of customers who are excited about what you have to offer will spontaneously purchase a product. This is especially true of tablet owners who spend an average of 20% more per purchase than their PC counterparts and 54% more per purchase than smartphone users.
Mobile customers are on the lookout for new products and services constantly with nearly 90% of them looking for new things and researching products, whether in store, prior to going to the store, or never planning on setting foot in a physical store.
New Customers and Brand Loyalty
Even though it’s become clear that mobility is the key for business growth and survival, by 2012 less than one third of businesses were mobile optimized. This can be good news for your business, as long as you create a mobile website soon. Those three-fifths of customers that go to competitors could be coming from your competitors to you. These customers can become valuable assets as long as you keep their needs in mind. Having the knowledge that other brand loyalties (to tablets or smartphones) may keep potential customers from developing brand loyalty to you is one as significant as knowing that a large amount of your clientele is mobile. Being aware of the quirks and nuances of each tablet and smartphone’s operating system can play a key role in adapting your mobile site for new and old customers.
Understanding that your customers are mobile in more ways than one is something that can’t be overlooked any longer. Realizing that they’re moving between your digital and physical stores and from screen to screen, and preparing for that fact will prevent them from moving from you to someone else.
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