Will your brand be slow with getting into the mobile media space?

It took years after the launch of app stores for several well known Canadian brands to develop their own app.  That's a good start into mobile presence.  However, as more and more time is being spent using smartphones, these same brands are slow to find other ways to engage with their market and customers.  While social media apps does provide some access, there's hundreds of other apps that brands can integrate with if they put their minds to it.

This 680News report provides more proof about our love with our mobile devices.

Smartphone ownership way up, Canadians addicted to their phones: Google study | 680News

Is your phone number published correctly for mobile convenience?

There are reasons why they are called 'smartphones'.  One of them is that they can detect phone numbers on company websites, social media, apps and emails.  With one tap on the phone number, your device will display a message asking if you want to make a call.

Your phone number needs to be published in a string of 10 to 11 characters for this work:

• 14165551212
• 1(416)555-1212
• 1-416-555-1212
• 1.416.555.1212

Notice in our examples we included the country code prefix "1".  This is for convenience for your customers who may need to reach you long distance and don't mind making the long distance call since many mobile voice plans include long distance calling.  If they happen to dial this number locally, most carriers suppress the "1" and complete and charge the connection as a local call.  Without the "1" in your published phone number, your long distance callers are inconvenienced with a carrier message stating that the "1" is required to complete a long distance call and to update their contact information and either pass the call through or ask your customer to redial. 

Go through your digital media (Linkedin, email signature, website, app, blog, social media, etc.) where your number is published and consider making it easier for your customers to reach you.

Digital Marketing and Content Marketing Leaders Use Mobile

I'm borrowing a post that I did on our other blog "Between Games".  

It challenges companies to think digital marketing beyond their website.  Mobile plays a big part.

http://betweenicegames.blogspot.ca/2013/07/describe-your-business-without-using.html

Making the Case for Mobile

Constant Contact (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We're not the only ones promoting the importance of mobile presence.  Have a look at Constant Contact's seminar for Tuesday July 23, 2013

Registration

Is Your Website Mobile Friendly?

Have you visited your website through a mobile browser lately?  Does it appear the same as it does on a desktop computer or is it formatted for easy reading and navigation?

A few things to think about here.  Web browsing on a mobile device only accounts for 20%, on average, of a users total data time.  If your site is hard to read, they won't spend time with it.  Lastly, if it is not mobile friendly, it moves down the mobile search results rankings.

This article explains how and why your rankings will slip.  While they use job recruiting companies as an example, this could apply to your hockey business too.

The Mobile Candidate Experience — It’s Already Too Late - ERE.net

Alternatively, you can bypass all of this by just having your own app.  That's where 80% of mobile user data time is spent...with apps installed on their device(s).

Content Marketing - Take it Mobile

Content Marketing is still new to many companies and even most of our clients.  Some of them are doing this activity without even knowing it or not putting much thought into it.

I put a couple of slides together to help you understand it a bit more and get you thinking of how you can use it in your overall marketing activities.  The emphasis is on taking it mobile of course.

View it here

How Much Mobile Time Does Your Brand Get?

Even if you have your own corporate app, there are other ways to get more consumer mobile time with your brand.  This Flurry report breaks down the average 2 hours and 38 minutes consumers spend on their smartphones and tablets.

Flurry Five-Year Report: It’s an App World. The Web Just Lives in It

It will be interesting to see how this changes year over year.  I suspect that the amount of time with apps will increase and the amount of time with Facebook will decrease as other social platforms develop and us humans integrate with them.  Nonetheless, its been 5 years since the mobile re-invention (read: launch of the App Store).  How long did it take your brand to enter this space...or are you still behind (read: 100% resources on website development and SEO (read: lost in a sea polluted with digital goop hoping to be found)?

Six Years of Mobile Presence

Skate Sharpening (Photo credit: CJMedia)

Great article by @susinsky in The Globe and Mail (Marketing matters: The ‘small’ problem with mobile ads).  If you are a brand manager you need to read this.

With the iPhone in the market for six years now, mobile presence creativity still remains widely open.  It needs to come from brand managers, advertising agencies and even app developers.

Here's one for you.  A small local skate sharpening shop sends you a discount coupon to your mobile device when you visit a competitor.  It can be done.  Geo-location detection and integration into a hockey relevant app.