Black Friday. Cyber Monday. Cyber Week. Green Monday….
Even the names for this unique shopping period tell you it’s that time of year that anyone serious about making money needs to bring their “A” game.
I mean, is there any other time of year where the shopping experience gets named?
What this means for you as a marketer is that there are people who are expecting to buy more from all sorts of businesses – B2C and B2B – this time of year.
So what’s the best way for you to leverage this crazy marketing momentum and catapult your revenues as you close out the year?
Two words: Mobile Marketing
This year, industry news is all about how more and more consumers are doing more holiday shopping than ever via smartphones and tablets and how the industry is blowing up!
Don’t believe me?
Check out this mobile shopping sum-up article from Sarah Halzack of the Washington Post. In her article, she reveals that the tipping point between computers and mobile, when it comes to online holiday shopping, has arrived.
From Thanksgiving to Cyber Monday, according to IBM’s analytics, the majority of all online traffic was from a smartphone or tablet, and on the most hallowed shopping day Black Friday itself, 25% of all online purchases were made using some sort of mobile device like tablets or smartphones.
Industry insiders are already forecasting a jump to over 35% next year or higher.
Larger retailers such as Walmart, BestBuy, and JCPenney saw tremendous gains in traffic this year from mobile shoppers. In fact, according to the same article above, Walmart reported that about 70% of their traffic from Thanksgiving through Cyber Monday was from mobile devices like smartphones and tablets!
Are you kidding me? 70%! Wow!
But any smart business knows that more traffic doesn’t always equate to more sales.
The Washington Post article noted the disconnect between smartphone traffic and smartphone sales. On Black Friday, for instance, smartphones generated about 34.7% of the overall traffic but only 11.8% of sales.
Some of this is likely due to price comparison while shopping. But it’s also the result of non mobile optimized shopping experiences. If your site isn’t mobile friendly, you might get the traffic but miss the sale.
How can you make sure you’re ready to deliver a great mobile shopping experience that leaves your customers eager to open their wallets? I think we can help…
5 Insanely Important Tips to Boost Sales from Mobile Shoppers
1. Optimize all content (not just your website) for mobile
It’s funny how many businesses are just starting to understand how important it is to have a website that works well on mobile devices – but forget to adjust their email to behave similarly well.
If your email marketing isn’t optimized for mobile users as well, you’ll leak traffic from your emails to your website.
2. Consider developing an app – or at least deliver an app-like experience for the shopper
A mobile app delivers an interactive experience to your users, making it easier for them to engage with your company in the way they want. It’s faster too since things like navigation are scaled down. Your customers are surrounded by companies that have invested in apps or app-like experiences on their websites, maybe you should too.
If you’re still think of your website as a repository of information rather than a platform to engage your customers in two-way communication, you are going to lose business.
3. Aim for pages that load faster
Google recommends mobile page load times of 1 second or less. The reality is that people have shorter attention spans these days and will lose interest quickly if your page is closer to the average mobile page load time of 7 seconds.
Now it’s unrealistic for most ecommerce sites to load as quickly as Google recommends, but every effort should be made to speed up your pages.
4. Optimize your shopping cart experience for mobile users
Some things you can do are make easy to use a billing address as a shipping address (decreases the time the user spends filling out forms), or making BUY NOW buttons easier to press on a smartphone screen, it’s critical to make sure your eCommerce shopping cart software is mobile friendly and delivers a seamless check out experience for your users, no matter where they shop or on what device.
5. Accept multiple forms of payment
Apple Pay, Google Wallet, and support for PayPal are growing in use. Your customers use them for convenience and security. You might consider using them for the name recognition and social proof they lend you and the sense of trust they inspire in your customers.
Making sure your business is ready for your mobile customers can go a long way toward helping you meet your end of year business goals.
What are your questions about enhancing your mobile experience for your customers?
Leave a comment below!
Till Next Time,
