By Jason Poulos (@TheSaganaki)
In last Friday’s post, Dave Hess talked about how responsive design can tackle a website’s mobile challenges. Having one site that reacts to mobile, tablet and desktop displays conquers all content, aesthetic and technical woe’s around the mobile web. A responsive design is where it’s at and is a solid solution to the mobile web dilemma. If gaining exposure and communicating information through the web is a goal. A responsive/mobile friendly website can help achieve those goals. Here are a few reasons why a mobile friendly website should fit into your digital strategy.
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Future:
The ever growing and emerging mobile market is the driving force behind having a mobile friendly website. With over 2 billion cell phones world wide and 35% of American adults owning a smart phone the need to be present where your potential audience browses is a must. Not only now but mobile is the future as well. It’s expected that over 5 billion mobile devices will be in use by 2012.
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Opportunity:
In June of 2011 Google and the Mobile Marketing Association found out that only 33% of US based businesses reported having mobile friendly websites. Finding your foot hole early in this expanding landscape is a necessity and easy way to beat out your competition.
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Search:
Search engine websites are the most visited websites on mobile devices. 77 percent of smartphone users cited this, followed by social networking, retail, and video sharing websites. Google has separate indexes for web content versus mobile content. A mobile friendly site that gets submitted to Google’s mobile site index has far more mobile ranking potential than a traditional desktop friendly website.
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QR Codes:
Have you ever snapped a QR code and it takes you to a non-mobile friendly web site? We love QR codes and in June of 2011 14 million users in the US scanned a barcode or QR code with their mobile device. As QR codes maintain popularity they will continually be used to drive traffic to a website. Before slapping that QR code on your print ad, or packaging make sure that your website is mobile friendly.Charles Schwab’s Schwab MoneyWise campaign was an early adopter of digital in the financial education space. To extend the reach of Schwab MoneyWise and its Money Mondays Tips, a fun weekly tidbit of financial advice, CRT/tanaka suggested building a responsive mobile friendly Money Mondays Tips page. To help get the word out, we also created a business card featuring a QR code to distribute at events.
Whether you view the mobile Money Mondays Tips site on your desktop < www.schwabmoneywise.com/money-mondays > or on your mobile device (scan the business card’s QR code), the page works seamlessly.
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Email Marketing:
With a mobile device in hand, checking email anywhere is extremely easy. When running an email campaign that contains links back to a website keep in mind that you have no real idea of where your audience might be checking their email. An email sent out might get looked at on a desktop, tablet or mobile device. To ensure the strongest experience as possible when an email recipient clicks a link, it’s best to be prepared for all three of these different environments.
Another responsive design in action is a one pager that CRT/Tanaka put together for Barnes and Noble. With a tradeshow coming up Barnes and Noble ran some ads in a html email to help drive traffic to their booth. The ad in the email links out to this responsive design that’s friendly for desktop, tablet and mobile users. The video to the left illustrates how the desktop design can collapse down to tablet and mobile versions. You can view the responsive site here
With a degree in communication design from VCU as well as experience in web development and digital marketing, Jason brings a unique blend of assets to CRT/tanaka. In 2012 Jason helped win 4 awards for his SEO work on PureCanadaMaple.com. Outside of his digital work, Jason enjoys brewing his own beer and restoring his1970 Chevrolet Nova. Jason is a new father and enjoys spending time with his family and his 150-pound English Mastiff.
Nice post I enjoyed reading about the QR Code usage its time for those involved in the industry to educate brands and businesses on how QR Codes can be used to add value.
I really enjoyed this, especially because the popularizing mobile markets are becoming a necessity in both personal and professional worlds. When you discuss “opportunities,” I completely agree that companies and individuals need to place themselves in the mobile technology in order to survive in the long run. Without taking advantage of the new tablets, smartphones and emerging Apple devices (such as the iphone 4S), companies will fall behind in relation to those technologically savvy competitors. The search sites, GR codes and email marketing available today makes conducting business and communication faster and easier. All individuals and companies need to jump on the advancing technology train!
Again, I found this piece to be very beneficial and relevant!
Glad both of you enjoyed my post!
Good article (again)
Why have google dropped QR codes? too many versions? no international industry standard? advertisers quite often just link them to a website that is not user friendly?
For a link from traditional media to mobile try http://www.tmssearch.com use a short code ..try SHARK1010
an interactive mobile site, easy consumer journey, works on all phones, web based, easy, measurable and a payment solution is coming too..
see an ad, link it to mobile, drive sales