Every time I see a comment by someone lamenting that everyone nowadays is on their phone, I confess I get annoyed. Yes, I’m a millennial, and I like my phone. It’s the first thing I check in the morning and often the last thing I check at night. Through the phone, I can access my banking app, budgeting apps, books, emails, music, film, friends, order food, call a cab, and more. It’s a powerful computer that fits in my hand. Why shouldn’t I be on my phone? What else is there to look at anyway – everyone else who’s also looking at their phones? It’s true that phone addiction is real, and has mental health risks:
Another study, presented last month at the Radiological Society of North America conference, looked at the brains of teens who fell into the category of smartphone or internet addiction. The authors found some differences in the chemistry of the reward circuits of the brain, particularly in the ratio of the neurotransmitter GABA to other neurotransmitters. Interestingly, when the teens went through cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT) for their addiction, their brain chemistry changed and looked more like non-addicted controls.
Earlier studies have also looked at activity in the addiction circuits of the teenage brain when they’re actually interacting with social media. It found that cells in one of these areas, the nucleus accumbens, were activated when participants viewed Instagram pictures with more “likes.”
In Australia, according to studies, 88% of people have a smartphone. This makes Australia one of the foremost adopters of smartphones in the world. While there are detriments to smartphone ownership, there are also undeniable benefits. Staying connected to business and personal and social matters aside, smartphones and their ready access to the internet and social media have advanced causes across the world beyond traditional press, bringing a spotlight onto issues such as Black Lives Matter and the Hong Kong protests. Regardless, smartphone usage will only keep rising across the world, and as such, brands need to increasingly understand mobile-first marketing strategies.
About Mobile First Marketing
Recently, I tried to book tickets for a chicken event in Melbourne. The desktop website worked, but the mobile website only loaded to a single image, with no booking for. To book on my phone on the go, I had to try requesting the Desktop site, and in the end, it was just too hard. The first lesson for people looking at mobile-first marketing therefore, in our opinion, is to have a mobile-first website. This means that at the very least, the website should function on a phone. Preferably, however, it should also be designed with mobile in mind, responsive to various resolution settings so it can look good across devices. This is the most basic part of any digital strategy — even if you don’t necessarily want a mobile-first marketing campaign strategy, your website should be accessible even if someone is using a phone or a tablet.
The second part of a mobile-first marketing strategy is the bit that most people are familiar with: ads on websites and ads run across social media, among other things. These ads would be built to be seen over a mobile phone, and as such should connect to a landing page / result that is mobile-friendly. The ad or piece of media itself should be easily accessible for phone users: in other words, more image-heavy, with an obvious call-to-action, maybe with contextual targeting (geolocations, messaging etc), with a view toward how your audience would handle the strategy.
Some tips
Some things to keep in mind about mobile-first marketing strategies:
- Research. You need information about your audience before being able to come up with a good strategy. Does your audience use phones often? What kind of apps or sites do they tend to visit? Do they buy your product on the phone? Find out.
- Video. You might have seen the hilarious bit of news this week about how Facebook had to pay a slap-on-the-wrist fine for inflating its video views. That being said, it’s still good to have video / gif-based content on the mobile. Make sure it’s still understandable without audio.
- Social Media is King. If your mobile-first marketing strategy isn’t pivoting off social media platforms, you’re wasting your time. Depending on your product and your audience, you might have to consider running content off Facebook, Pinterest, or even Tiktok.
- Do you really need an app? App installs can be a tough sell to anyone, even the most tech-savvy. We’ve got an article on that. To make your strategy the most accessible, we’d recommend websites or messaging instead of trying to get your audience to install an app. The app graveyard is growing.
- Retargeting. Even if your audience moves off that shiny piece of content you made for them, you can try attracting their attention again with retargeting.
Want to chat? Need to know more? Get in touch.