Smartphones: Wonderful Or Tearful?
Smartphones: Wonderful Or Tearful?
Smartphones are on the tips of every digital marketers tongue (if it’s not you need to catch up!). The landscape and potential of the marketing world has changed considerably due to our handheld friends. They are a golden pathway into the world of the consumer, allowing us to communicate on a more personal level than ever. For some, the smartphone has thrown up a lot more problems than solutions, (Nodding your head? Read on…) so in this blog post I will give a SWOT analysis on why YOU should be utilising this ubiquitous tool to its full potential.
Smartphone usage has been increasing sharply around the globe for the last few years and is showing no signs of stopping soon. According to Ofcom the UK is now a “smartphone society” and we’ve shifted away from using our laptops to access the internet. We’re not the only ones to see increased usage, Latin America, Asia, Central & Eastern Europe have all seen increases. The Middle East and Africa (MEA) has grown at its fastest pace ever to become second only to that of the Asia-Pacific region, according to a new survey. eMarketer predict that by 2019 67.1% of the worlds population will mobile users while 42.6% will use their phones to access the internet.
This isn’t much of a surprise, considering the constant developments surrounding smartphone technology , such as: higher RAM, bigger screens, cheaper parts and processes, 4G and Wi-fi hotspots… to name a few. All of which, gives consumers access to content quicker with more reliability. However, surprisingly we’ve (UK) yet to catch up to the mass of free wi-fi zones in Asia or the popularity of mobile banking in parts of Africa. This is something that will definitely begin to change in the coming months and years and will open up more doors for marketers. There are other strengths to utilising mobile within your marketing toolbox,
While there are many Strengths to utilising the Smartphone as part of your marketing toolbox, there are a few weaknesses that you need to be aware of:
Seniors (although numbers are increasing)
Invasion of privacy
Diverse platforms (Hardware and software issues: OS, Screen size, connectivity, html 5 compatibility)
Navigation on mobile
It can be expensive (but 100% worth it)
Options, options, options. No other platform for marketing offers so many opportunities than the Smartphone. In-fact, here’s a ‘not too’ exhaustive list of platforms you can utilise:
- SMS/MMS/VMS
- Mobile Applications
- Mobile Games
- Mobile Banner Advertising
- Mobile Local Search
- Mobile Paid Search
- Near field communication (NFC)
- Augmented reality
- Bluetooth,
- Location Based Services (LBS)
- Mobile SEO
- QR codes
- Voice Marketing
The list goes on. But there are more opportunities on the horizon for us marketers, New adobe
The increase in smartphone usage has already altered the marketing environment, with the most recent example being Google’s ‘mobilegeddon’ . But what’s next? What new threats will the smartphone era create for marketers?
Wearables
Apps cannibilising websites
Safety concerns (hacking news story, unsafe data etc)
The mobile is a very personal device and if marketing becomes intrusive or too noisy users will disengage
Cloud based/internet coverage could change the way we operate
They are ubiquitous and won’t be going anywhere soon.
