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Mobile Apps Are Only a Pit Stop for the Business Owner in the New Economy

Guest post by: Michael Farrell

Article Overview: Mobile applications have redefined the user experience, suggests Mike Farrell with aspenIbiz. Read this short post as it highlights that mobile apps are only a pit stop in the evolution of the mobile platform so you can find your leads and customers to market and serve them no matter where they are in The New Economy.

Mobile Apps Are Only a Pit Stop for the Business Owner in the New Economy

Mobile applications have redefined the user experience but they are only a pit stop in the evolution of the mobile platform.

The real endgame for the business owner in the New Economy is the Mobile Web. This enables you to find your customers and market to them no matter where they are.

To embrace mobile marketing, you must understand how mobile technology addresses human needs in terms of the mobility of human connection and the mobility of information.

For example, we are already living in a world where our sneakers can interface with our phones and our treadmill can Tweet our workouts but the future promises to be even more exciting.

Mobile technology will continue to improve but what is more interesting for marketers is how the heightened level of mobility will affect the way our customers think and the way the make decisions.

Mobile connectivity will continue to change how we access information and make human connections in the same way that the traditional Internet did a generation ago.

This change will give marketers an unprecedented opportunity to reach and understand their target market.

Many leads and customers have their phones with them all the time and their phones are frequently their primary means of communication with the rest of the world. This makes mobile marketing uniquely suited to help potential customers find you or learn about your products precisely when they need them.

So how do you make mobile marketing work for your business? What are the strategies and tactics for your products, services, brands, and customers? How do you integrate the mobile technology into your marketing platform?

Each of these issues will be addressed in the future however the balance of this article will provide tips on how to integrate the mobile technology into your marketing platform to create MOW Marketing ... Mobile Optimized Websites for your Marketing!

Just a little more background about the power of MOW as almost every business today has a website and that more and more entrepreneurs are directing their customers and leads to the web for information and to make sales.

This trend has seen a huge rise as a result of Web enabled phone sales. From Q2 of 2008 to Q2 of 2009, smart phone sales rose by 10.9 million. Stats for Q2 2010 are not yet out however the rise most likely will be even higher.

A couple of more stats that are available.

One out of 5 American's are on the mobile web every day expecting to receive a positive experience with Mobile Optimized Websites.

Of all US households, 20% are now totally mobile only. With the proliferation of Android and iPhones, people are choosing to get rid of most landlines and household computers, opting to use their web-enabled phones for all of their information, computing, communication, and entertainment needs. This market sector is totally expecting to receive a positive experience across a wide variety of Mobile Optimized Websites.

Here is the big problem... viewing a normal website on a web enabled phone can look very messy. For your mobile marketing to work, your website has to be created or modified to look like it was developed to be viewed on many different smart phone devices.

Here is a big plus. Unlike text messaging, mobile content does not have a 140 character limit so mobile content can be unlimited and include as much information, pictures, and videos as you want as long as it is easy to view and consume on a mobile phone.

As an example, a Realtor or a Real Estate firm might use the mobile phone to get all the relevant information like a short video of the site or property for sale, a testimony from a previous client, an interactive map with directions, and an optin form to provide name, phone number, and email address so an agent can contact or follow-up with a prospective buyer who might be interested in purchasing the property. All of these items make up an online sales kit, provided by the Real Estate Agent, and are delivered across the mobile web to prospective buyers while the Agent is doing other business activities. Once a qualified prospect is identified, the Agent can contact them, answer questions, and facilitate closing the sale ... truly a productivity enhancer and the best use of the Agent's skills and time.

Here are the key factors that need to be addressed as part of optimizing websites for mobile marketing.

What architecture will you use for your mobile web strategy? You will need to choose from among a separate mobile site with a different domain name than the main site; or a sub-domain on the main site for the mobile site; or optimized mobile pages on the main site.

The next factors to be addresses as part of optimizing websites for mobile marketing will cover items such as text, forms, flash and video.

Finally, the remaining factors to be covered include mobile screen size, page and file size, size of images, and RSS feeds.

There are new technology tools available that allows creation of mobile-optimized websites as well as web apps. The best news is that for small businesses that lack an IT department, no knowledge of HTML is required. There are solutions, such as goMobi that have a service platform that can do the grunt work for you. Business owners can simply drag and drop their desktop applications into a goMobi services platform and turn their desktop sites into mobile ones.

The status of mobile websites is about where desktop Internet sites were 15 years ago. There are an abundance of device horsepower and connectivity. However, the mobile Internet adoption rate is progressing at a much fast rate.

Here are several sites you can check out for additional information:

- dotmobi - a resource site with information on buying mobi domain names;

- mobithinking - a resource site with education about mobile web marketing;

- blog taptu - a site with resources and information on mobile app trends and app streams.

Sales and business success in The New Economy will be earned, not given. Businesses must be better. Business and sales people must be much better. Be sure to understand that leads and customers do not like to be sold to however they will browse, they will shop, and they will buy whatever items meet a need or is a solution to their problem.

By using the Internet to market your products and drive sales, you will be using the key tactics you need to succeed in the New Economy.

I Hope You Enjoy the Posts and I Trust You Will Find Them Insightful! Let me Know What You Think.

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Article Tags: Home Based Business, Internet Marketing, Make Money Online, Mike Farrell aspenIbiz, Mobile Web, New Economy



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