Are you sure your business can ignore the mobile revolution?

Day in day out you read and hear stories about businesses adding a mobile wing.

Little confused about what is this hype all about? Mobile Revolution ??

Lots of talk about different options to get involved with mobile but

“What is suitable for my business?”

In this article we will see different variations possible (Also considering Indian MSME market ) to get into mobile world. We shall see the difference between them. And some examples. Lets us make this simple.

Why you should market your business on the mobile web?

• Mobile penetrationis growing exponentially. If we thought WWW (World wide web) was big; then consider this, there are 4 billion mobile phones in the world i.e. about 4 times the number of PCs.

Myth Buster

• With new and smart phones reaching the masses, consumers are exposed and addicted to various features like messaging, camera, music, social needs, status quo, easy purchase, easy payments etc.
• MostBrands are planning or have launched their mobile web presence.  Now smaller businesses are following their footsteps.

With rapid adoption, customers are starting to expect that their favourite retailers will have mobile presence, making mobile both an opportunity and imperative for merchants.

How can you make your business presence on mobile web?

• SMS Advertisements: I agree its easy and cheap way to send bulk black & white text messages about your products/services. It is kind of one way communication channel for mass communication needs. {I’m writing this keeping in mind that Indian SME’s are also reading this blog, as many of them have asked me @ bulk SMS services for marketing}. Largely SMS marketing is not considered while evaluating options for mobile world.
  

It is good for situations like:

1. To send redeemable coupons, vouchers to your customers to boost sales
2. Send Ads to create brand value.
3. Send alerts & to do corporate information transmission.

But beware, with bulk SMS market been flooded, most of us think it as SPAM messages and delete them the very moment we receive it. Bulk SMS were ideally suited for alerts {delay in flights, bank transactions, emergency} but lure of business meant the means to cross over the dark side to SMS spam and marketing.

Need some examples where mobile is being used in business:

• Mobile Website: Like a website, you can get done your WAPsite.                   “Whats the difference?” The difference is the screen size, navigation, other features. the site you made for your web/desktop audience will not exactly map to mobile browser, making it very difficult for user to scroll through the page, large images and find the exact links to call or connect to you. A WAPsite takes into consideration all these aspects.
  

While making a mobile site consider following points:

1. Consider about screen size, mouse movement, navigation, camera, messaging.
2. Keep it fast. Avoid large images, animation {flash is not supported on all phones}
3. Keep it simple. Short sentence, easy connect action {Contact links to call/SMS directly}
4. Dont overspend on mobile site.It should be in continuation of your corporate look.
   

There is no sense making a mobile website and nobody knows about it.

How to promote your mobile website:

1. Put it on your .com {Desktop website} when anybody open your desktop website, they immediately get to know about mobile one and easy switch.
2. Put it on all your promotions { brochures, business cards, email signature, etc}
3. You can start a mobile only promotion. Special offers/coupons on mobile website.
4. Do some PR about your mobile website, you are among the early adopters, sure it will make news at least locally 🙂
5. Text your key customers.

“At PayPal, when we look at our merchants’ numbers, we’re seeing the impact of mobile commerce jump:Our mobile transactions show dramatic growth, increasing nearly six-fold, from $25 million in 2008 to $141 million in 2009.” – Courtesy Mashable

For smaller business, who are looking for out of box ideas to attract new customers, this is very attractive medium. New customers will like to browse and check if they find something of their interest, they would prefer mobile browser i.e. website instead of downloading whole application.

BUT the biggest obstacle to mobile web is connection, coverage, speed and data plan. This will be impacted with adoption of 3G.

Ok, now we know about SMS marketing, Mobile Website, “What’s this Application Store? This is making lot of buzz in news these days? Whats the difference between Website and Application? What should I use and Why?”

It’s an era of web2.0 and above i.e. not just brand communicating to their audience but and era where Businesses listen to their audience’s voice, interact and have complete involvement.

• Mobile Applications: The user testing of people attempting tasks on their mobile devices shows that the apps have much higher usability than the websites.

Common reasons for choosing Apps over Web are:

1. Performance: of application is better, easy navigation, content & image loading time.
2. Offline mode: These apps can be accessed in offline mode, reducing lot of dependency on connection and cost.{before you pounce with comments on this 🙂 HTML5 Application cache technology does allow offline mode for mobile web  but users at this stage are unlikely to remember that they can use these website even in disconnected state}
   
3. Device attributes: Many features like GPS, accelerometer, send notification to user, camera etc can be used efficiently in apps.
4. Better User Experience:

BUT After a new version of application is placed, it requires all existing users to upgrade to get it. This is more adapt for close user group.

• Convergence: Convergence between mobile web and mobile app is  definitely a great option i.e.
  

1. Mobile application interacting with web. (get and publish data)
   
2. Mobile application incorporating web content. (show content from website)

Whatever business you’re in, there’s a good way to put the mobile Web to work.

{All the views and opinions are personal, not of the organization}