Understanding your Mobile Audience and Creating an Effective Mobile Experience

With the recent increase in the use of the mobile web by the general population, creating a mobile strategy for your company should be a priority. By having a mobile marketing plan, it will allow your company to establish its web presence in the market and plan for the future. As the mobile web is a rapidly growing industry, most companies do not have a clear understanding on how the mobile web works nor how users interact with the mobile web on their devices. Before your company decides to invest time and money bringing the company to the mobile platform, you must first understand your mobile audiences and what they are truly after when browsing mobile optimized website.

Knowing your target audiences

Before you start creating a mobile marketing strategy for your company, you must first find out more about your target audience. Here is a list of the things you need to find out and be aware of before going onwards with your mobile marketing strategy.

• Whether or not your customers have the latest applications on their smartphones or if they are basic users without a smartphone.
• What kind of services do your customers use on their smartphones? Social media, gaming, web surfing, online coupons, or apps?
• What kind of service or information are your customers looking for when they visit the website?
• How long on average are they on the mobile web? (Daily, Weekly)
• Who is your primary target audience? What are they after when they visit your mobile website?

After understanding your customers’ needs and desires when visiting your mobile website, the second step in creating an effective mobile web experience is to take those needs and desires and turn them into an effective user experience for your customers when they visit your mobile website.

Factors to consider when creating a mobile website

Aside from the customers’ needs and wants, there are also other factors that you will need to consider when you build your mobile website.

• The layout of the information: most users use the mobile web because they want information in a hurry. Take out all the unnecessary information. It is important to figure out what the key pieces of information your visitors are looking for. Keep the number of pages to a minimum!
• Screen size: Screen size is an important factor when designing for the mobile web because there are so many different smartphones out there with different screen sizes.
• The simpler the better: Users are often easily distracted; do not include ads or unnecessary distraction on your mobile website. Avoid having links that open in a new window or horizontal scrolling on the page. In addition, keep the steps involved on the contact page as few steps as possible.
• Download speed and bandwidth: Avoid using unnecessary images or videos on your mobile site. This will obviously slow down the page loading time of your mobile site. Limit the byte size of images and the amount of text on the page in order for the website to load quickly.
• Visibility and Sensitivity: Do not have text or tabs that are small and hard to navigate. Links should be big and easy to click with fingers (finger-friendly).
• Consistency: Your mobile site should be designed with the same brand identity as your primary site. That way, users can easily identify your brand on the mobile web.
• Test, test, and test again: Try viewing your mobile website on different smartphones. Even though it may display fine on your iPhone, it may not look the same on Android or BlackBerry devices…or the new Windows Phone 7.

By knowing your target audience’s needs and desires, it will allow your company to create a more effective mobile user experience, which will lead to a greater return on investment in the future.