The Inbound Growth Blog

The Inbound Growth Blog covers all topics relating to an integrated marketing strategy. We write about inbound marketing, social media, integrated marketing strategies and the sales process.

Is Your Inbound Marketing Mobile-Friendly?

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Posted by John Beveridge on May 30, 2013 12:50:00 PM

inbound marketing responsive website design blogI love this quote from Eustace Conway: "What do I do for a living? I live for a living." Although it's probably not what he meant, it reflects how many of us integrate our personal and professional lives. We don't go to the office from 9 to 5 to work, then come home and forget about work until the next day. We work from home, we visit customers and prospects during the day (and sometimes at night) and we mix in our non-professional lives when we can. Which brings me to the point of this article: does your inbound marketing sync with your customers' mobile lifestyles? 

Telling statistics

In a recent article entitled, "The Shift To Constant Connectivity", Google's Lisa Gevelber identifed a telling statistic: 77% of of mobile searches are in a location (home or work) where people are likely to have a PC available to them.  Does that sound familiar? Have you ever picked up your smartphone while sitting in front of your computer to search or read your email? I have. The study also found that 3 out of 4 mobile searches triggered a follow-up action (a phone call, purchase or word-of-mouth sharing) and 55% of those follow-up actions take place within an hour. If you're inbound marketing isn't optimized for mobile, you're likely losing business to your mobile-friendly competitors.

I often hear business owners say, "my customers don't buy that way, we're a more traditional business." Well, consider this: 42% of respondents shopping for financial products did their research exclusively online. It doesn't get much more tradtional than financial services! If you're a financial servcies company and you're not optimized for mobile and inbound marketing, you're losing out on 42% of the buyers researching your product.

download-the-2013-essential-guide-to-inbound-marketing

Here are some things to consider to optimize your inbound marketing for mobile.

A responsive website is not an option!

Here is a great descripton of what a responsive website is from Thridda Design Studio, "A responsive website changes its appearance and layout based on the size of the screen the website is displayed on. Responsive sites can be designed to make the text on the page larger and easier to read on smaller screens. They can also be configured to make the buttons on the phone's screen easier to press. More sophisticated ways of using responsive design on a mobile device include: formatting the website to hide or present entirely different information, radically changing the graphics and colors, or even reducing the site to emphasize just its most important piece."

My website is built on the HubSpot Content Management Systems (CMS) and is responsive. One of the things I like about HubSpot's CMS editor is that it lets you preview your pages both in the desktop version and the mobile version.

HubSpot CMS

So ask your web designer if your website is responsive. If they don't know what that means, you have a problem. If your site isn't responsive, making it so should be a priority.

Make sure your email marketing is mobile-friendly

The first step is to make sure your email marketing software is producing responsive email designs. But if you do have responsive email templates and you're sending torturously long emails, you're defeating the purpose. Make your email titles short, to the point and personalized. Readers scan titles for a few seconds and decide whether to read or delete the email. Make sure your titles quickly describe what's in it for the reader and why they should open your email. Likewise, the body of your email should be short and to the point. Nobody wants to read a 3-page capabilities statement. Give them a brief description of how you might be able to help them and provide a call-to-action for the next step.

inbound-marketing-email-ebook

Mobile-Friendly Social Media Marketing

All of the popular social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter are responsive - you don't have to do anything for your social media marketing to display properly on mobile devices. But similarly to email marketing, keep your messaging tight and to the point. Use images to catch the reader's attention and provide links back to your responsive website and landing pages.

Summary

Mobile marketing is a must-do in today's buying process. Even if you sell traditonal products and professional services, potential buyers are researching the problems you solve on their mobile devices. The most important thing to do is to make sure your website is responsive and provides a great user experience on a mobile device. Keep your messaging brief and to the point and always make sure you answer the reader's question: "What's in it for me?"

Topics: Inbound Marketing

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