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Consumers have embraced new technologies and digital media. On average, Americans spend 2.7 hours per day socializing on their mobile devices.
Mobile coupons have seemingly burst onto the scene from nowhere - emerging in the last couple of years as an effective and growing digital marketing activity.
These charts are from the new Future of Mobile slide deck. The deck was produced by Henry Blodget and the team at BI Intelligence, a research and analysis service focused on mobile computing and the Internet. Please check out the full Future of Mobile deck here. All of the charts and data in the report are available for download from the BI Intelligence library.
Digital is changing.
There are now twice as many mobile dec vices sold as PCs.
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Recent analyst estimates point to mobile Internet usage overtaking desktop-based Web traffic as early as 2014. This isn’t a tremendous surprise. With smartphones, users have become accustomed to immediate communication and ubiquitous Web access, and with the advent of higher data speeds, users get a broadband-type Web experience via their mobile phone. Moreover, easy accessibility and portability of mobile devices supports their usage around the clock. With mobile having made Web browsing a truly 24-hour affair, Chitika Insights wanted to quantify mobile and desktop usage as a function of hour of the day.
To quantify this study, Chitika Insights examined a sample of tens of millions of mobile- and desktop-based online ad impressions within the Chitika Ad Network. This data was drawn from a date range of March 5th to March 11th, 2013, and focuses on impressions from the U.S. and Canada only. In each case, an index is created. “100%” refers to the hour at which mobile or desktop traffic (depending on the graph) is maximized. If a point is “70%”, for instance, that means that the amount of traffic at that time is 70% of the traffic volume at the peak. For reference, we’ve included North American time zone conversions above each graph.
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Supply chain chatter out of Asia suggests that Amazon’s long-rumored smartphone is almost ready to begin mass production ahead of an anticipated early summer launch.
According to published reports Wednesday, Amazon has designed a striking smartphone with a dazzling 4.7-inch display.
“The company was previously considering a 4.3-inch screen but later scrapped the idea after witnessing increased demand for larger size screens among consumers,” the sources tell Digitimes.
For close to two years now, the rumored Amazon-branded smartphone has been on the drawing board.
As MMW reported earlier this month, the device was expected to enter the market by now, but the “smartphone is still under its engineering verification test (EVT) period due to issues related to its mobile platform.”
“It’s smart for Amazon to get its software perfect before releasing a phone,” says Jay Yarow of Silicon Alley Insider. “It’s going to launch into a very crowded market: iOS and Android dominate, but Microsoft and Blackberry both have very good platforms vying for third place.”
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Yelp is rolling out a new tool for local businesses.
On Monday, the company announced “Revenue Estimate,” a resource that enables small business owners to figure out how much revenue they’re generating from their Yelp listings.
Yelp says the free tool does the math by multiplying customer leads sent from Yelp each month by the business’s average revenue per customer lead.
The launch of Revenue Estimate comes on the heels of a new study, the findings of which show that local businesses with a free Yelp account generate an average of $8,000 per year more than businesses without a Yelp account.
For advertisers, on the other hand, revenue was up $23,000. “We think this new tool will be helpful to business owners for two reasons,” Yelp announced on its official blog. “First, it helps quantify the revenue opportunity Yelp is already sending to each business. Second, it establishes a revenue baseline for prospective advertisers, from which they can later evaluate the impact of their investment in Yelp Ads.”
Getting in and out of Walmart may become a much faster process if the latest mobile technologies are successfully deployed by the retail behemoth.
Walmart’s iPhone Scan & Go pilot program is set to expand to more than 200 stores. Walmart shoppers at these locations will be able to use their iPhones to scan and pay for items at self-checkout counters.
The pilot began near its home office in Bentonville, Arkansas in late 2012, then expanded to Atlanta, Reuters reported Wednesday.
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Here's a brief overview of the rise of the tablet consumer: - Mobile commerce is big, and getting bigger: 29% of U.S. mobile users already have used their smartphones to make a purchase. Bank of America predicts $67.1 billion in revenue from smartphone and tablet retail purchasing by European and U.S. shoppers in 2015.
- Tablets are a big part of the research process: According to comScore, over half of tablet owners used their devices to compare price, product, and store information. In a recent survey, one in five tablet users said they completed these activities, "almost every day."
- But tablets are also used to complete purchases: Traffic from tablet visitors to retail websites quadrupled during 2011. Tablets now drive more traffic to online retailers than smartphones, accounting for 7% of traffic to ecommerce sites (vs. 5% for smartphones).
- And tablet consumers also spend more money: In 2011, tablet consumers spent 50 percent more per order on retail websites than smartphone shoppers — and more unexpectedly, 20 percent more than shoppers on PCs.
- Tablet device sales will fuel additional growth in the coming years: With lower prices, more device options, and emerging market opportunities, tablet sales are set to explode to 450 million annually by 2016. Increased tablet commerce volume will likely come along with it.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/bii-report-the-rise-of-the-tablet-consumer-2013-3#ixzz2OBuWbrm6
Here's a great example of how mobile and creative thinking can come together to create an original and compelling marketing campaign.
The video below -- recently dug up by MIC Gadget ...
As of January 2013, industry analysts comScore reported that 55 percent of American mobile phone subscribers owned a smartphone. This trend is still on the rise, and it opens up a world of potentially more profitable mobile marketing opportunities to the small businessman. Richer marketing channels are available through smartphones (think mobile apps, the mobile Web and localized digital advertising), and can be used to create greater engagement and conversion rates.
As of mid-2012, total Web traffic from mobile devices was greater than 27 percent, and growing fast, eMarketer.com reported. In fact, mobile browsing is growing 14 times faster than that of desktop Web browsing. This facts mandates your business website be mobile friendly – if it’s not, you’re losing a serious competitive advantage. Google revealed that 67 percent of mobile Web users are more likely to buy from a mobile-friendly website, and a full 61 percent said they would quickly move on to a competitor’s website if it is not.
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The rate at which businesses are rushing to get their apps running on to the mobile platform is astounding, but more is not always better. According to a report released last year by Gartner, 61% of enterprises plan to enhance their mobility capability during the next 3 years, and 48% believe they will become leaders in their industries by adopting innovative mobility solutions...
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Mobile Marketing Watch
Mobile Marketing Moves to The 'Forefront' for B2B Marketers
Mobile Marketing Watch
According to recent published reports, mobile marketing has “moved to the forefront” for B2B marketers.
Mobile devices account for just 15 percent of e-commerce today, but eMarketer estimates that by 2017, one-fourth of online sales will be mobile-based as people conduct more of their lives on smartphones and tablets.
In case you missed it, here are some of the top stories in mobile marketing we've been following this week. MMA Announces Agenda for July Mobile CEO &
Earlier this month, Google unveiled the biggest changes to the AdWords platform in the last five years in a bold move to make AdWords work in the mobile world we live in today.
I recently had a chance to interview the Head of Global Mobile Search Ads at Google about where Google is headed in terms of their mobile search strategy, and why. While we didn’t talk specifically about SEO, many of the mobile search concepts are applicable to both paid and organic mobile search.
In my article today, I’d like to summarize for you five key mobile SEO trends to look out for, based on all of the exciting changes that are happening in the world of paid mobile search.
Read On...
Imagine having a computing chip in your toothbrush to count the number of strokes you’ve racked up so it can alert you when you need a new toothbrush. And as a marketer, what if you can access that data so you can deliver an email to that person’s mobile phone, alerting them of a sale on toothbrushes.
This is a dream use case of digital marketers today, as their ultimate goal is – and has always been – to reach the right person with the right message at the right time. Mobile marketing is bringing consumers and marketers closer to that dream.
At SES New York, a keynote panel addressed the opportunities of mobile marketing and channels available today for brands to engage with their users as well as what challenges are appearing from this new marketing mix. In addition to mobile marketing for customer acquisition, the panel also discussed how brands are delivering additional value and fostering brand loyalty with a holistic mobile approach.
Read Highlights...
Only 10% of European consumers trust posts by brands on social media sites like Facebook or Twitter; in North America this number increases to 15%. This is the finding of new research from Forrester. It shows that consumer trust of brands in social media is still much lower than the trust they have for their friends and the posts they make.
The research, based on a sample of 20,788 (and 63,703 North American) European online consumers, was published by Forrester this week and explores how consumers react to different marketing messages and types of content.
Overall the message is clear – consumers trust content they go out to find (from expert reviews to recommendations from friends and family) than they do content that is pushed at them. Interruptive advertising such as marketing text messages and banner ads perform worst from a trust perspective. Posts by brands on Twitter and Facebook are the fourth least trusted source of information.
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The team at PayAnywhere is in good shape for when that big day finally arrives – the day when cash is something our grandchildren may only know from the history books or museum trips.
As the prevalence of plastic continues to push paper bills into the ash heap of history, the industry’s leading credit card processing companies and mobile payments providers are gearing up for the inevitable day when cash is hardly – if ever – used at the point of sale.
“Over the last few decades,” a post on the PayAnywhere blog reads, “cash has gradually fallen out of favor amongst consumers at large. Currently, two-thirds of the public prefer to make payments via credit and debit cards. In the near future, another form of payment is set to further squeeze cash right out of the loop.”
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The use of mobile devices to perform online searches and interact with businesses is on the rise. Nearly 30 percent of mobile searches result in consumers visiting a store, calling a business or making a purchase online, according to a recent study by research firm Nielsen and Google.
And as business owners ramp up their mobile marketing efforts to capitalize on this trend, they also need to know how -- or if -- those efforts are paying off. Google thinks it has the answer. The tech giant has launched a new tool called The Full Value of Mobile Calculator. The goal is to offer simple equations and benchmarks to help estimate the value that mobile drives over apps, over mobile sites and more. So, business owners can now gauge what's working and what isn't -- and make adjustments as needed to help achieve their goals.
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Apple has been awarded a new patent related to an augmented reality system, making it the latest handset manufacturer to place a bet that the technology will play a key role in next generation mobile experiences.
Google, Nokia and Samsung, as well as marketers, are also supporting augmented reality in order to get ahead of what is expected to be a significant wave in consumer demand for these experiences. While the technology is still in the early stages, the expectation is that it will play a bigger role going forward in how consumers access a variety of types of content.
“As mobile industry transitions from keypad to touch screen as the new interaction mechanism, Augmented Reality based interaction will drive the next wave of growth ,” said Neil Shah, senior analyst for the global wireless practice at Strategy Analytics, Newton, MA. “As a result, companies such as Google, Apple and Samsung are investing in this area.
Enterprise mobility is only getting stronger and according to a recent study, it’s about to take over the world.
On Wednesday, the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) released a report that predicts the global enterprise mobility market will rake in $140 billion a year by 2020. This would mean a 15% annual growth in revenue for the next seven years. What’s more, the report suggests that the existing spend by enterprises on mobility will grow to 10-12% of the total IT spend by 2020. Right now, that figure is less than 5%.
While most enterprise mobility growth is happening at a steady and rapid pace in the United States. Nasscom says that other countries — including the EU and Asia — are quickly catching up.
“Organisations in India are quickly tapping the enterprise mobility opportunity, transforming business process strategies from an enterprise focus to a consumer focus. In the current ecosystem, smaller players are key contributors to this opportunity area; their entrepreneurial spirit and innovative thinking has fuelled the entire app economy not only for consumers but also for the enterprise,” Som Mittal, Nasscom President, told Business Standard.
Read the entire report here
In mobile, Readability = Engagement = Revenue.
Customers will not purchase what they cannot read.
Since their phone fits in the palm of their hand, do your marketing messages look like the bottom line of an eye chart?
Did you know the world already views more emails on mobile than browser-based emails?
If you want to reach your audience on mobile devices, you must design your services to function elegantly on those hand-held devices, or they will drop you like a bad habit and sully your brand on Facebook on their way out.
This means that all digital marketing should include mobile marketing considerations because that is where your customers are now, or soon will be.
Smartphones now outsell PCs, with a billion devices in use. Not only is mobile the dominant view of email, but one out of every five emails is viewed on the iPhone alone.
Most marketing emails are designed for larger screen browsers, relegating those messages to getting crushed on iPhones, cropped on Android and mangled on other devices, diminishing their impact.
Seventy percent of consumers immediately delete emails that render poorly on mobile devices, while 61 percent abandon mobile-unfriendly sites.
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It was probably inevitable. Mobile marketing and advertising have largely failed to live up to tremendous hype for the better part of a decade, so it shouldn’t be surprising that we’ve seen a recent backlash decrying how mobile ads stink, are ineffective and command paltry ratescompared to traditional online ads. It doesn’t help, of course, that mobile ads seem to grow more annoying as our use of smartphones increases.
And there are plenty of other reasons the mobile ad market continues to struggle. Deploying quality ad campaigns across the massive range of mobile devices is time-consuming and costly. The rush to build mobile apps and websites has created a glut of inventory on which to place ads, shackling ad rates. And marketing types have largely failed to understand how smartphones and tablets are very different platforms than PCs, relying all too often on banners that take up far too much of the small screen and are often untargeted.
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