insights

creating a mobile website strategy

The growing demand for mobile websites highlights an urgent need to meet customers where and when they are.

It also leaves the door open to a host of poorly executed sites that frustrate users while fostering negative brand experiences. This article focuses on the importance of incorporating mobile into digital strategies, not as an add-on or a nice-to-have element, but as a fleshed out list of requirements and benchmarks before launching mobile versions of existing sites.

Remember the 90's when the world was agog over this thing called the World Wide Web? Media hype and novelty sent users and business alike in droves to the web. A lot of great websites were launched during those heady days, not to mention, really bad ones. Looking back at those older websites, many of us cringe at their hapless design and poor user experience. We all learned from our mistakes, and the burgeoning, older, smarter, faster web of todays is testimony of that fact.

Unfortunately, I still get flashbacks of the 90's when I look at mobile websites. Although the number of great mobile sites outnumbers the bad, the fact that many of them are poorly designed and executed gives me pause. It's pointless to discuss those sites in specifics. Collectively they have the same common problem: poor navigation and content organization.

mobile should be at the forefront of digital planning

Media-hyped statistics of record busting smartphone and tablet sales paint mobile as the next web frontier. Judging by the popularity of tablets (iPad, Samsung Galaxy), touch phones (iPhone, Droid) and smartphones (BlackBerry, Nokia C3) with users worldwide, the wireless web is having a tremendous impact on how we communicate, shop and work. As I write this article, the sales of mobile devices continue to outpace desktop and laptops. More users are accessing the web from mobile devices than every before. Mobile marketing has successfully tapped into this trend and revenues from branded banners on free apps, and interactive ad units are steadily on the rise. Mobile commerce (mCommerce) trends, driven by location-based services and discount offers, changed consumer behavior. Banner ads, in-app interstitials, and limited-time savings offers broadcast contextually to users at predefined locations, generated a lot of revenue for brands and businesses. With all these benefits and potential earnings, many business owners and brands would be foolish not to place mobile as an anchor in their digital planning.

mobile consumer behavior

Consider this scenario: I work out three times a week with a personal trainer. I book all my appointments at least three weeks in advance from my gym's website. This allows me to pay a special rate for all my personal training sessions. The catch is, I can't cancel at the last minute. If I don't cancel a session at least 24 hours before my next appointment, not only do I lose the money I've already paid for the session, but I also get charged a cancellation fee. I do a pretty good job of adding my personal training appointments to my calendar, but sometimes I forget.

The gym's electronic system logs all my appointments, but I can only use it on a computer. There have been many times I wished my gym had a mobile version of its booking system. That way I could check my schedule on the go, as well as book and cancel appointments if necessary. From conversations I've had with other gym patrons, I'm not alone in this sentiment. The clientele at my gym is comprised of business professionals who are constantly on the move. We all have one thing in common: 95% of us book all our training sessions and workout classes online. Almost all of us carry one or two smartphones with us at all times. Many of my fellow gym patrons have considered switching gyms due the lack of an online booking and account management system. Clearly, to satisfy customer demand, my gym will have to invest in a mobile-friendly booking system.