[The following entry is the final post in a two-part series about how to develop a mobile strategy for your business.]
If you're just joining us, please see Part One in this series: there, you'll get the run-down about who is using mobile and how they're using it. Today, we're diving in and giving you the details about how to create a mobile strategy for your business by asking questions about your customers, learning how your customers engage with your business through their mobile devices, and some tactics you might consider integrating into an overall mobile plan for your company.
Third: ask questions, do trial runs.
(Learn how your customers and your business interact via mobile technology.)
Before you dive into the mobile world and redesign everything, it’s important to gain a bit of knowledge regarding your customer base and your business needs. Start with a few questions:
- Is it important that my business is easy to find and access on-the-go?
- Are my customers using mobile devices? In what situations would they want information about me?
- Is my site easy to navigate currently?
- How do the needs of my customer differ depending on the device they’re using? (For instance, a customer might want to access menu information or location when they’re on their smart phone, but want photos of the restaurant when they’re on a tablet.)
- Try accessing your own site via different mobile devices. How easy is it to navigate? Can you find essential information in a timely fashion?
Once you answer these questions, you can draw up a scenario of a typical customer’s mobile experience with your business. For example:
Let’s say you own and operate a local restaurant.
A potential customer is texting with friends as he rides the train on his way home from work: he wants to meet his friends for dinner and drinks, and is using his smart phone to find a restaurant. Through Facebook, your potential client sees that another friend has recommended your restaurant, and clicks the link to your website. But, parts of your website aren’t available because you’ve designed in flash. Still willing to give you a shot, the gentleman looks up your location and reads some reviews through his Google app. He copies and texts the location to his friends and meets for dinner. During dinner, your customer comments on Facebook about your service. After he leaves, he writes a review on Yelp and Urbanspoon. Fortunately, everything went great at the restaurant and you got rave reviews.
By considering the customers interaction with your business via mobile, you can identify potential problems (the restaurant above could have lost a customer when they couldn’t access the site because of its design in flash, for instance) and opportunities (in what way can you take advantage of reviews?).
Every business should at least consider the ways customers interact with their brand through mobile devices, and even if you don’t think your customers will utilize the medium that often, you should still develop a mobile plan for your business.
Finally: develop a mobile strategy.
The number of people who access and publish information via mobile devices like smart phones and tablets grows every day. It’s important that your business consider how mobile affects you and develop a plan that helps you capitalize (or moderate) this medium.
A mobile strategy might include:
- Responsive design (designing your website to anticipate and respond to customers’ needs based on the size of their display screen).
- Developing an app
- Participation in social media services like Facebook, customer review sites like Yelp, and development of a Google Places page.
- Reorganization of information on your site so it’s easy to access and use
Ultimately, the key to a good mobile strategy is understanding your customer and how they interact with your business through mobile devices (see step three above). From there, you can identify shortcomings, possible opportunities, and develop a plan to create a mobile-friendly website and positive customer experience. You’ll have the information you need to choose the mobile tactics that are right for your business and disregard the ones that aren’t.
The bottom line?
Mobile devices are not going away. The number of customers using mobile products will continue to grow.
It’s essential your business develop a mobile strategy, and using the information above we hope you have a head-start.
Get ready: your customers are going mobile. You should, too.