I was talking to a good marketing friend of mine and he showed me his new product page. I was on my cell phone so I decided to check it out on my iPhone. There were several problems with it, one being it was not mobile friendly. It was one big issue and lucky for him I told him the issues with his site. He then started to read up on mobile marketing and strategies then on.
We are moving into a mobile space right now, a lot of users have cell phones, a big majority have a smart phone! As marketers we need to adjust to this and make sure we can reach our traffic whether they are looking on it from a standard FireFox browser or their iPhones. For example I have a virtual card on IanFernando.Me.
It has all my information and it is the only business card I need now. When someone scans my QR code, 2 things happen - there is a check that see if it is a smartphone or not, then redirects to the proper page. Since users can go to my virtual card form their browser, I still want to make it browser friendly and attractive.
But if they are viewing it on their cell phones, I want to make sure they get access to the right information fast. I do this by creating a mobile friendly page or in the case of my virtual card - a mobile friendly service that houses my information. You can visit my virtual card on your phone and it will redirect you JumpScan, a service that holds my contact information on a mobile friendly page.
In order to do this, I use a code that checks the screen size of the browser and then redirect the user if necessary. The code below is added to the TOP page of my html page. This code will be the very first line of defense to mobile users, making sure they are sent to the right page.
[html] <script type="text/javascript"><!--
if (screen.width <= 699) {
document.location = "http://jumpscan.com/ianternet";
}
//-->
</script> [/html]
This small snippet of code says if the screen size is LESS than 699 in pixels, redirect to JumpScan profile. If you go to my JumpScan profile from this blog, on a standard browser you will see a standard and browser friendly page. If you viewed it on a mobile device, you will a very friendly mobile landing page with my contact information. This is why I keep it on JumpScan.
You should take advantage of both parties and redirect users base on the type of browser they are on. DO not permanently switch to mobile as a BIG majority of users will still be PC/MAC browser base traffic. You should cater to your users and make things easier for them. For example ability to watch videos, load times, smaller image file sizes, etc. There are a lot more you can do to optimize your website to cater to mobile users.
I know I personally work on my iPhone a lot and I tend to view emails and websites on my phone. It bothers me that I have to magnify the website I am looking at to see and understand what I am looking at. Making everything easier for the end user is the best way to gather leads and make sales.
Use the code above and paste it ABOVE any other code of your website and redirect it to mobile friendly services such as JumpScan or download and edit mobile friendly themes. If you are using WordPress, just use WPTouch to turn your blog into a mobile friendly theme.
In either case mobile marketing will have to be part of your marketing model.
