20 posts categorized "Mobile Web"

Our 2011 Mobile Review was one of the most popular features we've ever published, so we knew we had to follow up with something even better this year. We think you'll enjoy our recap for this year: 18 Mobile Stories That Mattered In 2012.

We break down the 18 most important stories that shaped the mobile world in 2012, from the Apple Maps fiasco to the explosion of mobile ad revenue (even at now-public Facebook!). Check out the 18 Mobile Stories That Mattered In 2012 now.

Entry By Jason Brick

One of the best ways to ruin a company is to have excellent marketing and terrible service. Similarly, you can spoil some of the best text message marketing by having it lead to a second-rate website (check here for mobile web design tips!).

Some Web concepts vary from market to market, industry to industry -- but others are the same whether you're selling legal advice or custom widgets. Does your site violate any of these best home page practices?

Keep it Simple

The KISS principal applies to electronic advertising just as it does to print. You can have a lot of information, even complex information, spread over several pages -- just keep the elements on any given page to a minimum.

Avoid the Dreaded Text Wall

Break up any text on your page with bullet points, subheads and line breaks. The human brain reads words on a screen differently than on paper. Make it easy to skim through your content, since that's what your reader's body wants to do.

Use High Quality, Legal Graphics

A photo, chart or other pictorial element does a lot to make a page stand out and get read -- but don't just use any old graphic. A bad photo is worse than no photo at all. So are stolen photos. No matter how easy it is to download and use a random photo from the Web, somebody is bound to notice. Use graphics only with permission and proper attribution.

Love Your FAQ and About Pages

On many sub-par websites, these informational pages are obviously an afterthought: generic and thin marketing information recast from a brochure. The best sites embrace these sections as a way to break free of the anonymity of web commerce. Be informative, fun, even quirky with these. Let your personality and company culture shine through.

Limit Options

It's tempting to load your site with widgets, games and acres of content. Though this works for a few content-based business models, most of the time those extras simply distract visitors. Always remember the goal of your page, and offer few -- if any -- options that lead readers away from that goal.

Post Your Contact Info Proudly

The purpose of your page is to get prospective customers to become paying clients. They can't do that without knowing how to contact you. Whether that contact is personal communication, or an anonymous Internet purchase, make it clear and easy how to make that happen. Don't hide these options at the bottom of a text wall or behind several click-thrus.

Entry By Simit Patel

One of the ways marketers can stay ahead of the competition in a cost-effective way is by carefully monitoring new consumer technologies. Doing so is generally a way to find the next big marketing channel before everyone else comes in and drives the price up. And over the next few years, one of the hottest technologies to watch will be that of near-field communication (NFC).

Wikipedia provides us with a good definition of NFC:

Near field communication, or NFC, allows for simplified transactions, data exchange, and wireless connections between two devices in close proximity to each other, usually by no more than a few centimeters.

Marketers should keep their eyes open to see what type of applications this technology ends up facilitating, though the earliest approaches thus far seem to be focused on using NFC as a payment mechanism.

Google Wallet is the most publicized offering that illustrates this capability; it will allow users with NFC-enabled Google phones to simply swipe their phones to make payments and redeem loyalty coupons at merchants with NFC-compliant terminals.

A study by mobile research group Amadeus estimates that 247 million NFC-enabled smartphones will be in use by 2015. Add that Google is seeking to bring this technology to merchants and can do so via its global ad network, and the likelihood of NFC becoming a key technology and a paradigm changer grows considerably.

For businesses, this introduces a few key considerations:

1. Accepting NFC Payments. If you're in a business that thrives on offering convenience and speed of checkout, or if you are a business prone to overload and so need to focus on getting customers through the checkout lines as fast as possible, planning to accept NFC payments should be a key priority. NFC certainly enables greater speed.
2. Integrating NFC Payments With Your Marketing Campaigns. Google is planning to enable marketers to build applications that access NFC payment information via an API. In other words, NFC payments will enable marketers to better track and identify customers who give permission to do so; this in turn enables marketers to better identify who their best customers are and how to reach them.

The implications of this are profound, especially for businesses that are already enjoying success with coupon marketing; NFC payments can help you identify which customers are most responsive to coupons, what else they buy, and many possibilities yet to be conceived.

The world of NFC is just getting started. Hopping on the trend early enables marketers to best position themselves ahead of their competitors in this field.

Entry By Jason Brick

This post is a follow-up to our previous guide to Mobile SEO & UX. – Ed.

Ten -- okay, maybe 15 years ago -- businesses were scrambling to put up websites. It was becoming clear that competitive businesses needed to establish a presence in this new virtual real estate. 

Today, the same transition is happening with mobile computing and connectivity. Though it hasn't saturated all markets yet, including a mobile website within your company image becomes increasingly more important every month. 

Setting up your mobile website is similar to creating your normal website, with subtle key differences that can make your mobile presence stand out -- as either a winner or a loser. 

1. Forgetting Screen Size

Mobile devices -- even tablets -- have a markedly smaller screen size than desktops and laptops. Bad mobile websites make the screen, and even individual elements, too large for easy viewing and navigation. Users will grow frustrated and browse your competitor. 

2. Too Much Data

With a mobile device, data speeds are lower and data costs are higher. If you pack your page with images, plugins, and even too much information, you can overload the capacity and cash flow of your potential customers. Stick with simple graphics and a clean style. 

3. Unspecific Metadata

Metadata in a web page is the invisible code that makes the site work. In this case, it's vital that your metadata specifies that your mobile content gets displayed on mobile devices. Otherwise, the device could wind up accessing your regular website -- wasting all the time and money you've spent on the mobile design. 

4. Not Thinking Like a Mobile User

The best mobile web pages put the functions users want first, out front. For example, many of your mobile users will access your site for directions and contact information. Your regular page might have that under a "Contact Us" tab over on the right -- a mistake in mobile design.  

5. Desktop Interface Style

Forms are a pain on a mobile device, as are large fields that require interaction at various points on the screen. If your site requires interface -- such as a log-in prompt or order placement -- design it to make it as painless as possible, given the limitations of mobile devices. Similarly, it pays to allow a customer to import information from previous sessions -- for example, allowing them to use payment information they entered earlier using a desktop. 

6. Keeping it Secret

This is perhaps the single most common error companies make when developing their mobile website: they don't tell enough people about it. Mobile sites are not an "if you build it, they will come" proposition. Use all of your existing communication channels to tell people about your new mobile portal.

Entry By Jason Brick

Running your small business can feel like working in a vacuum. You keep working your plans, but lack the feedback and example of other players in the game. This is doubly true of mobile marketing -- a promotional field new enough that there isn't a strong data infrastructure to which you can compare your results.

Industry will catch up in good time. Meanwhile, you can draw inspiration from these three wildly successful mobile initiatives:

Marks and Spencer

British retailer M&S decided in 2010 to take the mobile plunge. Instead of going with a simple app or SMS marketing campaign, they opted to design a mobile portal for retail purchases direct from customers' mobile devices. In less than two years, Marks and Spenser rose to be the number one ranking mobile retailer in the world. Not only are they successfully selling to mobile customers, but they're selling items not normally purchased electronically -- including furniture and large-screen plasma televisions.

Expert analysis identifies three key characteristics behind Marks & Spenser's success:

• A dedicated mobile site -- incoming connections to their website identify the kind of device that will view their page. Mobile devices are routed to an experience optimized for those devices.
• Simple programming for a fast load time -- just over half the time of the average 10-second load for mobile retail.
• Reliable purchasing leading to a 100 percent success rate on attempts to buy. Retailers average about 93 percent -- but losing seven percent of sales can make a big difference.

Pontiac G6

In a campaign to raise awareness, Pontiac offered a place in a drawing for $1,000,000 every time somebody texted a photo of a G6 they found in the field. Responses were immediate and impressive. Although Pontiac hasn't released exact numbers, sales for the year of the promotion numbered over 120,000 luxury cars -- as compared to only 16,000 for the year before.

The Pontiac campaign is an excellent example of eliciting a response from potential clients. It got people who may only have been interested in the prize keep a lookout for the product, raising brand awareness across multiple markets.

The keys to this success included:

• Solid integration of print and broadcast media with the mobile response campaign.
• A compelling call to action that required no immediate outlay of cash from potential responders.
• Simple interaction mechanic -- snapping a photo and sending it to a widely advertised email address.

Nike

In a desperate attempt to inform the remaining three people in the world who don't know what Nike sells, the sports apparel giant has embraced the mobile marketing world with a series of apps. In some cases partnered directly with Apple for the iPod, these fitness apps, like MyCoach, help users plan and execute fitness training regimens. Nike coupled this with real-time response campaigns like their Nike ID initiative in Times Square.

Although they didn't release specific numbers about the campaign's success, their mobile marketing frequently leads lists of the most successful mobile marketing campaigns to date.

Nike's success with their mobile marketing relied upon:

• Multiple mobile platforms and styles, to appeal to a wide general audience.
• Giving potential customers tools that help them use the merchandise they sell.
• Pushing information about the new campaigns through more traditional media sources.

Editor's Note: Although we usually cover SMS Marketing tips and tricks here, we know that many small businesses are beginning to embrace the mobile web - so we thought it would be a good idea to share some best practices.

Entry By Jason Brick

This Just In: Mobile design is not the same as web design.

That may not seem like news to experienced mobile marketing pros, but you might be surprised how many people apply inappropriate web design concepts to their mobile platforms. The result is predictable: frustrated viewers who move on to the competition.

Just like competent web design, solid mobile SEO and UX design is a complex topic -- but you can get started by working toward these six don't-miss characteristics of a working mobile platform: 

1. Fewer Graphics

Graphics make a traditional website look slick, but take up bandwidth while loading. On a mobile device, download speeds are slower and the extra data costs money. Stick to your logo, plus compelling text, to catch and hold a user's eye. 

2. Stick with Tried and True SEO

Keywords, headings and tags work for mobile devices just as they do with tradition al browsers. Use them appropriately, but consider streamlining data to the most effective keywords for your market. Mobile search engines often take load speed into account among other factors.

3. Remember Screen Size

Your designers usually work on jumbo screens attached to a desktop. This keeps them efficient by allowing them to optimize work flow -- but can lead to designs meant for larger interfaces. Mobile devices, especially the app phones that generate the overwhelming majority of mobile traffic, have small screens. If your mobile platform is so large that a user can get lost -- or has to zoom out until elements are frustratingly small -- you'll lose viewers to a site optimized for mobile devices. 

4. Minimize Forms

Though we've come a long way from using a phone keypad to enter text, the interface on app phones is still time-consuming and flaky. Forms on your mobile platform should be simple, be easy to navigate, and you should ask for as little information as possible. 

5. Allow for Portability

Make it easy for a mobile user to access account information he entered while accessing your traditional website from a desktop at home. This "best of both worlds" approach lets you impress with quality graphics and gather all the information you need, while still allowing easy mobile access while your customer is out and about. 

6. Test

Test your mobile platform from a mobile device. This is a simple concept, but you might be surprised to discover how many businesses skip this essential step. For best results, have somebody from a department unrelated to mobile design -- or a loyal customer -- do the testing. The further removed the testers are from the designers, the closer their experience will be to an end user on a mobile. 

It seems like QR Codes are everywhere lately. We see them on billboards and in storefronts all around New York City. That got us thinking about ways to integrate QR Codes into Ez Texting - which led us to create a a demo that uses QR Codes and Mobile Optimized Signup Widgets for on the go signups.

Check out the demo and let us know if you'd like to add QR Code powered Signup Widgets to Ez Texting in the future.

If you want to do this right now, the demo has step-by-step instructions for generating QR codes that you can use for on the go signups.

If you've ever wanted to log in to your Ez Texting account when you're on the go you know that our full app can take a while to load on a smartphone. Today we're speeding things up, a lot. If you login to Ez Texting using any smartphone we'll automatically deliver a mobile optimized version of our application.

You can't do everything yet but all of our most popular features (aside from voice broadcasting and Keyword editing) are available in our mobile optimized site. In the next few weeks we'll be improving and adding to mobile version of our app, so if you have feedback, please be in touch.

Android is officially the most popular mobile operating system...for new purchases:

Nielsen is adding its voice to the chorus  of research firms confirming the ascension of Android. Nielsen said among recent acquirers of smartphones in the last six months through August, Android was the top platform in the U.S. with 32 percent of new purchases, followed by the iPhone and Research In Motion’s Blackberry platform, tied at about 25 percent.
...
The recent purchase numbers from August put Android’s momentum into better context. We can see that even with the boost from the iPhone 4, Apple smartphones are still getting outsold by a flock of Android devices. RIM’s slide is even more pronounced in these numbers as well, plummeting from 35 percent to 25 percent from June to August.

Read more at GigaOM.

Interesting quesiton posed over at Small Business Computing: What is Mobile Commerce, and Why Should You Care?

Mobile commerce (also known as mobile ecommerce, m-commerce and other variations) consists of two primary components. The first is the ability to use a wireless phone or other mobile device to conduct financial transactions and exchange payments over the Internet. The second is the ability to deliver information that can facilitate a transaction -- from making it easy for your business to be "found" via a mobile Web browser to creating mobile marketing campaigns such as text promotions and loyalty programs. 

Head over to Small Business Computing to find out why you should care (you should)!