Smartphone Addiction | Why It’s Great For Mobile Marketing Pushers

The first step of any effective mobile marketing strategy is identifying the best way to reach your consumers. A lot of companies have stuck to traditional methods such as television, radio, billboards, etc. But is that still really the best way to reach people nowadays? Think for a minute, if your radio was taken away, would you be able to cope with that? Probably. What if your television was taken away? Could you live with that? You’d probably be very unhappy, but there are other ways to watch TV in today’s digital age. But what if you were told to go without your cell phone for an entire day? That’d be a little different wouldn’t it? In fact, a majority of people would probably experience a severe feeling of emptiness or nakedness without their cell phones. Add smartphones to the mix and these feelings get even worse. In fact, according to a study done by Time Magazine, it has been found that 84% of people feel that they could not go one day without their smarthpones and 50% of Americans sleep with their phones next to them (80% of them being 18-24 year olds). It was also found that this is not an epidemic found purely in the U.S., but smartphone addiction is something that is prevalent worldwide! That means there is an entire GLOBE of people addicted to their smartphones, constantly around their smartphones, and constantly USING their smartphones. What better medium to market your company through!?!?!

A Harvard Business School study found that 70% of people check their smartphones within an hour of waking up and 56% of people check their smartphones within an hour of going to sleep. Another study found that 40% of people check their smartphones while sitting on the toilet. Do we need to continue? The fact is that smartphone use has become so rampant and widespread that it’s hard for a lot of people to imagine life without them. This is where you come in. Knowing the above information, and that 91% of all U.S. adults have a smartphone, wouldn’t you want to market on them?! If you ask any marketing experts today, the answer would be a loud and resounding YES! Mobile marketing is THE way to market to consumers today because EVERYONE has them. Considering the fact that 90% of ALL texts are read within 3 minutes of arrival and the average user checks their smartphone 35 times a day, for about 30 seconds each time, mobile marketing isn’t just effective, it’s also amazingly efficient! Using mobile marketing, you know you are not just reaching your intended audience, but they are also opening, seeing, and responding to your marketing since it is such a personal medium. You also have an extremely low likelihood of ever annoying anyone because they always have the option to opt-out, or request you to stop sending them text messages.

But text messaging isn’t the only way you can take advantage of people’s smartphone addictions. If you have a company website, but it is not optimized for mobile, you are cheating yourself and your company. Anyone looking for your website on their smartphones can find your site, but it will be extremely irritating and frustrating for them to navigate it without mobile optimization. If they become irritated enough, they will leave your site, and they will leave it quickly. This results in lost business, which is obviously not what you want. Optimizing your website for mobile will make it much easier to navigate and end users will be much more willing to stay on your site longer, which naturally results in more purchases and more business. So why are you waiting? Optimize your company’s website today and snag those consumers who browse your site on their phones!

We’ve already given you a number of reasons why you should start to integrate mobile marketing into your company’s marketing strategy, but realize this is a GROWING trend. Smartphones have only been around since 2001, and didn’t gain popularity until 2007 when the iPhone came out. So people are still learning how to use them and exploit their full capabilities. This is just the tip of the iceberg! If you and your company wait too long to enact a mobile marketing strategy, you will find yourselves left in the dust! Many, many companies have already seen what mobile marketing can do for them, and they could not be happier with their results. Now it’s your turn to see what mobile marketing can do for YOU!

Infographics Credit: http://www.searchcowboys.com/mobile/1950