How to Beat the Competition with Mobile

This isn’t your parents' marketing landscape.Twenty years ago, you could read a trade journal and know everything that was going on. Not anymore. Today there’s far too much data and the changes are coming far too rapidly.So how do you keep up? You adapt.Adaptability becomes an amazing tool that allows you to thrive in new settings, says entrepreneur Santiago Jaramillo. And one area where modern marketers must adapt is mobile.“Mobile has changed life as we know it,” he says.Santiago, founder of mobile app company Bluebridge, shared how to kill your competition with mobile at Go Inbound Marketing 2015. Let’s dig into his presentation to learn about how you can kill your competitors by adapting to mobile faster than they do.

Shift. And shift again.

We’ve witnessed the shift from print to web, and now we’re witnessing the shift from web to mobile, Santiago says.In 1990, we saw the rise of the mass consumer Internet. By 1999 there were around 500,000 websites as the shift from print to web unfolded.Look at the explosion in the number of internet users:

• 1995: 35 million internet users
• 2014: 5.2 billion internet users

As the number of Internet users has skyrocketed, so have the number of apps:

• 2008: App Store goes live
• 2010: 500,000 apps available

Santiago also shared two remarkable tipping points in terms of mobile interaction. In 2014, we spent more time on our mobile devices than we did in watching television – marking the first time that TV hasn’t led our technology use.

Second, desktop and laptop use is actually dropping today, while mobile use is still growing like crazy. (It’s also worth noting that Google has made mobile a priority in rewarding sites that are mobile optimized and provide a great user experience.)Are you focusing your marketing efforts to account for this massive shift to mobile?

Meet them on their journey

Santiago says that in order to properly help a prospect or customer, you must understand where they are in the the customer lifecycle. Look at how mobile applies to each of the stages in the Customer Journey.Discovery: Correlates with thought leadership and awareness marketing

• In 2012: less than 25% of discovery took place on mobile devices. Now 60% of those searches are on mobile.
• This probably means you should concentrate more on your mobile experience. In fact, 63% of online adults will abandon a business if they have issues with their online experience
• Responsive sites are a “must have”
• Don’t shoot yourself in the foot before the flight begins. Use Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test Tool on learn how mobile-friendly your website currently is.
• Mobile works best when it’s part of a multi-channel marketing effort so make sure you create a cross-channel strategy.
• Understand your target audience and build a tool that helps them do what they love. You need to own the mobile community in your space before someone else does.

Purchase: Mobile is growing at 3x the speed of regular e-commerce

• Santiago believes we’re “on the cusp of the mobile-first era”
• Look at the Chipotle app as a great example. It allows you to order and find stores, and it’s helped Chipotle increase their brand loyalty while getting visibility into the behavior of their customers.
• The key is making it easy to purchase. If you do it correctly, it can help you deliver a better customer experience while lowering your costs.

Experience: Event apps boost the attendee experience

• Push notifications cut through through the static, allowing direct communication between organizers and participants
• Samsung built an app for people who wanted to stay updated on their products and offerings. They built in rewards like tips for getting the most out of a phone and worked with events like NFL games to give VIP access to users (perks and rewards for being Samsung owners and brand followers). Some 91% of owners who engaged with the app reported satisfaction with the app experience and 100% who engaged at events said they were likely to purchase Samsung again.

The bottom line: if you want your business to succeed, you need to crush it on mobile. Just as it was key to adapt to the age of the internet, it is now just as important to adapt to the age of mobile - the data proves it. Make your mobile experience exceed all others.