Websites on Mobile Phones

My earlier blog posts this week both discussed website design considerations - what browsers your website should "work" in as well as how wide your website should be. Well this post covers whether or not your Denver small business website should work well on mobile phones.

Should My Small Business Website Be Optimized for Mobile?

I frequently discuss mobile websites on this blog, because the time is coming when a lot more website visitors will be arriving to your Denver small business website on a mobile phone. That time isn't quite here. Unless you're a restaurant owner in Denver metro, I wouldn't be too concerned about mobile.

Most mobile browsers can accurately deliver existing websites as they appear on a desktop machine. The website will require scrolling and resizing in a mobile browser for a user to find the information that they want.

There are websites (usually huge, national websites) that are specifically optimized for mobile (e.g. m.cnn.com, m.weather.com). If you visit those websites by clicking them, you can see how they present the most common information that visitors are looking for in a straightforward fashion. Going through the trouble to do this for a Denver Small business would be a waste of time.

Mobile Phone Summary

Based on studies I've seen, most Denver small business owners can expect just 1%-2% of their traffic to be from mobile phones. Don't worry about optimizing your website for mobile phones. At least not yet.

How Does this Help Me Market My Denver Small Business?

You need to make sure that the majority of your potential clients have an optimized viewing experience when they arrive at your website. This will ensure that your marketing message is delivered in the most effective manner possible.

As of this moment, if you don't own a restaurant, you don't need to worry about how your website looks on a mobile phone. The percentage of visits from mobile phones is just too low at this time to dedicate any time to ensure mobile visitors have a great experience on your website.

As mobile phone visits continue to increase, this may change, but this will likely be another 12-24 months into the future. At that time, the Denver small business owner will have to be concerned about how their website looks and functions on a mobile phone.

Optimizing for Mobile now may be a waste of time

While optimizing for mobile now can help for the increasing mobile visits, the technology landscape can change so much in the next 1 to 2 years, that your efforts could be largely wasted. Instead, focus on providing a great user experience for desktop users with high screen resolutions - these are the visitors that make up nearly all of your website visitors.

A couple of recent articles related to mobile advertising have recently appeared on Tech Crunch.  These articles combined with another study that I covered in an earlier blog post clearly show that mobile advertising is not a wise use of marketing resources for Denver small business owners.

The Rise of (the) Android

We'll start off with the good news

TechCrunch - citing an AdMob study - has shown that mobile ads shown on Android have doubled since October. Clearly, the introduction of Motorola's Droid is largely responsible for the increase in ad impressions.

Now the not so good news

TechCrunch also recently ran a post discussing which mobile operating system users were likely to click on ads. Here are the highlights from the post:

• Despite all the new Android Users, they were one of the least likely groups to click on ads
• Palm and Blackberry users were least likely to click on ads
• Iphone/Ipod users were well above the average for mobile users when it comes to clicking on ads

Mobile Users Don't Click on Ads Much

The fact that IPhone users were more inclined to click on ads than most other mobile users is not good news. I recently wrote a blog post which covered a Chitika study which showed that IPhone users clicked on ads just .30% of the time - less than half the clickthrough rate of desktop/laptop computer users. The Chitika study mentioned that mobile users in general had a clickthrough rate of a little more than half of non-mobile (desktop/laptop) users.

How Does this Help Me Market My Denver Small Business?

If you own a Denver small business, you probably should not be participating in mobile marketing right now. For most websites, the percentage of mobile visits is around 1-2%. Some websites may see as much as 5 or 6%. In any case, the penetration of mobile phones with respect to browsing is still very low. Combine the relatively low penetration of mobile with a clickthrough rate that is just half of non-mobile, and mobile still represents a very tiny piece of the pie.

I frequently post about mobile advertising, because I do believe that it will emerge as a viable advertising opportunity in the future. Most Denver small businesses have extremely limited resources and should not spend a lot of time or effort focusing on a mere 1 or 2 percent of their Internet visits.

Restaurants are a major exception

If you're a Denver restaurant owner, you need to be exploring mobile right now. Mobile offers unique opportunities for restaurant owners to market their business - especially to existing customers. In a previous blog post, I discuss mobile marketing for restaurant owners in the Denver metro area. A well constructed mobile marketing campaign can keep Denver diners coming back to your restaurant.

It appears that every year is going to be the year of mobile advertising - and already the first articles claiming that 2010 will be the year of mobile advertising are starting to appear. The problem is, that it never seems to pan out - at least not for small businesses. The Denver Business Journal recently featured an article about how 2010 was going to be a big year for mobile media - "Reach your on-the-go consumers by mobile media".

The author of the piece - Ken Barber - provides some good insight and it is a very interesting read. I do disagree somewhat with his opinion that 2010 has a "mobile marketing revolution" in store. Larger companies in hypercompetitive niches that advertise on a national level will certainly want to ramp up their involvment in mobile advertising. For most Denver Small Businesses - with a couple of notable exceptions - mobile advertising is something to be aware of now and to implement later. The mobile market is just too small right now for most Denver Small Business owners to get a good ROI on their efforts - and their marketing resources would be better spent elsewhwere.

From the article:

I'm thinking the 2011-2012 timeframe will provide a better chance at providing ROI for mobile marketing efforts for Denver small businesses. We're just not there yet.

Author and highly respected small business marketing expert John Jantsch also had a blog post about how to harness mobile marketing recently. He's understandably bullish on the future of mobile marketing - his blog post is a very good one and contains tons of mobile marketing related resources - one of the most comprehensive lists I have ever seen. This post is worth a look for the great information Jantsch provides.

Mobile Marketing Isn't A Must For Most Denver Small Businesses

Clearly, mobile phones with full browser capabilites are starting to get a foothold with consumers, and as a Denver Small Business owner, you need to pay very close attention to this trend. Just recently, I purchased a Droid - and I love it. It provides me full Internet capability and keeps me very productive while I'm away from my office.

For your marketing message to reach the increasing number of mobile phone users, you will eventually have to get with the program and make sure that your Denver Small Business is participating in mobile advertising campaigns - just not yet.

From my earlier blog post - Should my Denver Small Business Ads Appear on Mobile Phones, I reference a study which showed that of the total ad impressions for online text ads - just 1% were people browsing on mobile devices. Another study was recently released and cited on Tech Crunch - Only about 1% of all web page views are done via mobile. Even if this number explodes during 2010, and increases 500% - we're still looking at a tiny fraction of ad impressions that are associated with mobile phone users. Your time will be better spent building and optimizing ad campaigns for people viewing your text ads on their computer.

How Does this Help Me to Market My Denver Small Business?

Don't Worry About Mobile Advertising If....

• Your Denver Small Business isn't even running ads on AdWords or Microsoft AdCenter
• Your business advertises locally, to a very narrow audience
• Your business targets an older demographic not likely to purchase a smartphone
• Your primary focus is on obtaining new customers or clients

Mobile Advertising represents a tiny fraction of Internet users. For most businesses advertising locally, mobile ads would likely be reaching too small an audience of users to be worthwhile at the present time.  Most Denver small businesses need to focus on the big piece of the pie - conventional web browsers running on good old-fashioned computers.  Optimize that first before moving on to mobile. There are some exceptions as noted below.

Definitely Look at Mobile Advertising if....

• You are a Denver restaurant owner - see my blog post about mobile advertising for restaurants I did last October.
• You're looking for a creative way to better market specials to existing customers

In a previous blog post about Denver restaurant marketing, I covered Yelp - and recommended that Denver restaurant businesses needed to use Yelp to help promote their restaurant. Yelp isn't limited to just restaurants - and I recommend that most Denver small businesses looking to promote their business further explore Yelp.

What is Loopt?

Screenshot of Loopt.com home page

From the Loopt.com "What is Loopt?" Page:

Loopt helps to keep friends in touch via a mobile phone. What is particularly interesting is that according to a recent TechCrunch article, Loopt is positioning itself to be a direct competitor with Yelp. Reviews of restaurants, bars, and other local establishments are now a key part of Loopt. A particularly interesting facet of Loopt is that reviews aren't always anonymous - users of Loopt see these reviews that have been contributed by their friends through Loopt.

How Does this Help Me Market My Denver Small Business?

Denver small business owners - especially restaurant owners and retail outlets - need to pay close attention. Loopt has approximately 3 million users according to the TechCrunch article - a signifcant number. Reviewing what is said on Loopt to improve your service offerings and to be certain that your business is being fairly represented would be wise.

Note: This is the first in a two part blog post about Denver restaurant marketing. This post discusses how Denver restaurant visits are down from last year. I also cover how Denver restaurant owners can boost their Denver restaurant marketing efforts through mobile advertising within the Denver metro area. The follow up blog post will discuss how to get a restaurant listed in Denver local search directories. I also discuss how these directories can be a highly effective way to market Denver restaurants and bring in a lot more diners.

According to a Denver Post Article, Parker: Eateries Traffic on a Diet, Penny Parker references a recent NPD study showing that restaurant visits continue to be on the decline. Restaurant visits in Denver metro are down 2 percent from last year - which mirrors the 2 percent decline of restaurant visits nationwide. These restaurant numbers are yet another indicator that the Denver economy is far from a real recovery.

How Does this Help Me Market My Denver Small Business?

If you're a Denver restaurant owner, you're obviously already aware of the issue and the need to stand out from your competitors. There are a couple of things that you can do to boost the number of diners that are coming in to your Denver eatery: Mobile Advertising and Online Marketing. In the first part of this blog post, I'll be covering Denver mobile advertising. My next blog post will cover Denver Online Marketing for Restaurants.

Denver Mobile Advertising for Restaurants

The Denver Post article mentioned that when discounts like coupons are used, it tends to increse the number of restauarnt visitors. The current state of the economy means that everyone is looking for a deal, and if you haven't experimented with discounts you probably should to get more diners into your Denver restaurant. One emerging way to experiment with discounts is through mobile advertising.

A mobile advertising campaign for Denver Restaurants works as follows:

1. Offer your diners a coupon/discount to participate in your loyalty club
2. As part of loyalty club conditions, provide an option to to opt-in for text notifications of weekly or monthly deal specials (no more than weekly or diners will opt out of your program.
3. Text message diners who opted in for your program with your weekly specials to encourage visits

This mobile advertising strategy offers an opportunity for you to market to your existing customer base efficiently, while at the same time providing them something of value. The mobile marketing campaign strategy for restaurants is already being used - examples from just the past week are provided here:

• Jack in the Box drives customer interactions via mobile social network - Jack in the Box has used text messaging as a way to bring in local diners to their restaurants. The offer: a free smoothie.
• Auntie Anne's Launches New Text Messaging Campaign to Connect with Holiday Shoppers - Aunt Annie's Offers an easy way for holiday shoppers to opt in to their email marketing with a text message.