3 Things to Consider When Developing a Mobile-Optimized Content Marketing Strategy for 2016
As the world wide web becomes more mobile, your content marketing strategy needs to keep up — after all, over 50% of content consumption happens on smartphones and tablets.
This trend towards mobile usage can be utilized in many different ways, but it’s important to understand how differently today’s consumers use their mobile device compared to a desktop computer. Understanding these dissimilarities can help us to employ better campaigns and strategies, as well as plug any leaks that are detracting from your content experience.
Mobile users spend an average of one to three hours per day accessing the web — how they engage and what they are viewing in this time offers a wealth of information for marketing on a level of convenience.
Here are three things to consider when developing your mobile content marketing strategy for 2016.
1. Transactions
Mobile usage affects marketing at the most basic level in buying and banking, where more people than ever before are using their phones to perform these tasks. This reflects the average consumer’s expectation for expediency and convenience, even when making a transaction or dealing with money.
It also speaks to the way that individuals are making buying decisions — which is to say, remotely, with more weight placed on company reputation and crosslinked branding as they browse from a device. 67% of the buying journey is done digitally, and marketers need to adjust their strategy accordingly.
In accompaniment to this shift in consumer mobile usage with regards to money, mobile phones are becoming replacements for items previously reserved for paper. Hardcover books have become eBooks, paper contracts are now signed digitally, tickets purchased at a box office for concerts and movies are now available online. More businesses are offering scanned rebates, coupons sent on smartphones and e-clips for shopping, while others accept debit and gift cards scanned from a mobile device for in-store transactions.
2. Connectivity
Mobile phones inherently promote connectivity. The more people use their devices to interact with the world around them through the use of apps and mobile services, the more usable and readable content marketers need to make available for this vast audience.
For example, a majority of mobile devices have GPS, and many users share their location within their apps and other third parties — it only makes sense to offer content based on location.
Content consumption, such as these location services, have a wide area of aggregate information that can be used to identify buyer behavior in general as well as offer profiles of individuals across a swathe of popular mobile applications. Beyond location, companies are increasingly using analytics and algorithms to interpret mobile usage and predict what an individual may be interested in based on the content they’ve already accessed.
3. Presence
Self-published content is an effective way to increase awareness and brand recognition through convenience. People who use mobile are often on the go and do not want to search in depth for the information they need, so that means making necessary information readily accessible, and deploying your own content optimized for mobile so people can easily locate and view it from their phones.
Ensuring that home and landing pages are optimized for mobile usage is a crucial step in digital marketing. Not only do the design and formatting have to be adjusted for smaller screen sizes, but menu options should be pared down to include only those most necessary to optimize the ease of access.
Finally, it’s also important for companies to aggrandize visibility across different social media platforms. It’s a good idea to take advantage of these free or low-cost options since virtually all social media platforms already have app versions which fit content to mobile automatically.
Developing a mobile content strategy for 2016
The move towards mobile means marketers need to modify and expand their practices to effectively promote themselves to their audiences and build brand awareness. Mobile usage also offers a wide latitude for creatively publishing and sharing content, which positively affects the bottom line.
Think about how many leads you may have lost because your content isn't living in a responsive experience or isn't optimized for mobile devices. Plug the links by considering all of the possible ways people could be consuming your content, and optimizing accordingly.