How Do You Integrate Mobile Into Your Digital Strategy

There are very few marketers out there right now who wouldn’t agree that mobile is at least a piece of the future of marketing. But what does this really mean, and how can you best integrate mobile into your marketing strategy?

Search

Google Search is one of the top marketing tactics for companies, and mobile is about to give your company a big boost. Google announced that they would be using mobile in their search algorithm.

“We will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results. Consequently, users will find it easier to get relevant, high quality search results that are optimized for their devices.”

Although PPC and SEO remain a vital part of any website’s strategy, it looks like Google will help mobile websites with their organic reach as well. The company never reveals exactly what goes into their algorithm, or how much weight a mobile website might hold, but it’s good news for those websites who put some time into building a mobile website.

Email is not dead

With a dramatic shift to social media in the last decade, it’s easy to understand how email has taken a backseat. But, has it really?

According to the Content Marketing Institute, a recent study by McKinsey & Company shows that email is 40 percent more effective at acquiring customers.

“Ninety-one percent of all U.S. consumers still use e-mail daily, and the rate at which e-mails prompt purchases is not only estimated to be at least three times that of social media, but the average order value is also 17 percent higher.”

However, the shift away from email may be the problem with email itself. Content marketers are no longer spending as much time on the message — because writing copy takes time. But this isn’t the only problem with email.

Responsive design is the buzzword of the moment – for a reason. But many are overlooking making their emails responsive as well. If you aren’t optimizing your emails for mobile then you may be losing a large part of your audience. According to the Content Marketing Institute (citing a study by the U.S. Consumer Device Preference Report), 65 percent of all emails opened in Q4 of 2013 were on mobile devices. While 42 percent of mobile users delete emails that are not displaying correctly.

Keep it short

With any content that could possibly be seen on a mobile platform, keep it short. While some people have hours to spend reading articles on their phone, plenty more do not. If you are seeing that a large part of your traffic is coming from mobile (or even if it is just a goal) make sure what you are putting out there is easy to read and digest.

People want to be able to consume it quickly and move on. For a blog post, this means a few paragraphs — or even better, bullet points. Try to understand where people are logging on through their phones, and try to play to that audience.