Why Your Business Marketing Must Be Mobile-First
By Rieva Lesonsky
If you’ve heard me speak in the past few years, you’ve heard me emphasize the importance of mobile marketing. Everything your small business offers needs to be presented in a reponsive format (website, emails, etc.)
A recent article in Advertising Age underscores this. It notes a report from research firm BIA/Kelsey that predicts mobile-ad spend in the U.S. will exceed $40 billion this year and pass $65 billion by 2020. Plus the latest stats show smartphones and tablets account for 51.3 percent of internet use.
Ad Age says, “Numbers like these tell the story: for mobile marketing, a moment of transformation is at hand.” The article addresses five trends expected to emerge from the transformation, including the fact consumers now expect your stores to offer reliable in-store Wi-Fi so “they can check stock availability, product information, pricing, available offers and peer reviews via smartphones.” But they “also expect ready access to knowledgeable sales associates.”
Another reason your business website must be mobile-friendly is because Google has announced it’s “experimenting” with a mobile-first index. The search giant explains because most people today search Google on a mobile device, its “algorithms will eventually primarily use the mobile version of a site’s content to rank pages from that site.”
In other words, if you want to live in Google’s world, which is connected and powered by mobile tech, you’d better jump on the bandwagon now.
