Think Mobile Is Not For You? Five Reasons Why It Should Be
By Bob Egner, VP of Product Development, EPiServer
These days, you’d be hard-pressed to find a retailer who doesn’t understand the value and importance of a mobile strategy. However, despite the fact that mobile has and continues to become a larger part of consumers’ daily lives, many businesses still are hesitant to embrace a mobile strategy and implement a platform that provides customers a consistent user experience across channels.
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While it is not hard to find statistics and general soundings that support a move to mobile, there still are misconceptions that mobile is too difficult to implement and not worth the time and/or resources required to do it correctly.
The fact is, over the last few years, I’ve had the opportunity of working with a number of retailers as they navigated the mobile process. And in that time, I’ve been able to see dramatic increases in both customer experience and conversion rates as a result of the strategy.
Recently, I worked with the folks at WSOL to come up with a few reasons why now is the best time for retailers to go mobile. Take a look at why it may be the prime time to embrace the mobile revolution:
1. You may not get a second chance; first impressions are powerful and lasting. According to a Google study, 46% of people won’t return to a web site if they had trouble accessing it on a phone. In addition, 57% of people said they wouldn’t recommend the site to peers.
2. A good mobile experience can drive revenue. Another recent Google report found that 67% of mobile users say they are more likely to buy a product or use services offered by a mobile-friendly site.
3. Very soon, most web traffic will be derived from mobile. Analyst firm Gartner predicts that in 2013, mobile phones will overtake PCs as the most common web access device. (Source: Gartner Research, “Gartner Identifies the Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2013”)
4. Having low mobile traffic may be a sign you’re getting left behind. The difference in traffic before and after mobile optimization can be drastic. For example, Google analytics found that Hearst Publishing saw 30% to 50% increase in mobile traffic across publications after optimizing their design for the small screen.
5. Your customers expect a good mobile experience. Google’s “Reasons To Go Mobile Survey” found that 66% of people say a poor mobile experience can tarnish their opinion of a brand or company they really like.
Bob Egner is VP of Product Management and Global Marketing at EPiServer, a provider of multichannel digital marketing and e-Commerce software. Egner regularly interacts with customers who are working to improve the results of their online and mobile presence and customer engagement.
