As business owners, we would all like to take the time to do our research and make a sound decision on where to invest our marketing and technology dollars. Unfortunately, more often than not, we find ourselves looking for additional hours in the day just to get all the core business functions done, which doesn’t leave much time for doing one’s due diligence when it comes to research.
So what do you do when you know you need to make a change, but haven’t had time to do the research? Follow the money!
Google co-Founder, Larry Page, told investors last week that mobile is quickly becoming the “backbone” to their advertising strategies. Smartphone and tablet search accounted for 12 percent of total search advertising spent in Q1 and the ad spend on these devices rose 221 percent over this period last year. At this point, mobile is bringing in more than 10 percent of Google’s revenues and that is growing quickly. We could go into detail as to why advertisers are shifting their dollars to mobile, but it’s pretty clear when you walk down the street, enter a Starbucks or watch a group of teens sit glued to their phones amongst one another; people have become addicted to their mobile devices.
Advertisers aren’t the only ones spending money on mobile either; the consumer spend on mobile is growing quickly as well. In April 2011, RichRelevance measured 1.9 percent of online sales coming from a range of mobile devices – by the end of March 2012 that had increased to 4.6 percent. What’s more is that it is tablet devices that are driving this growth. According to RichRelevance 68 percent of e-shoppers on their partner sites are using an iPad and those users are responsible for 9 percent of the mobile revenue. iPad users also spend more with an average of $158 per order compared to $105 on other mobile devices.
The iPad essentially makes people want to spend more money which means you should be utilizing the iPad to sell to consumers! In real estate, this means converting your listing presentations to be optimized for the iPad, ensuring that your IDX search is designed to capitalize on the features of the iPad and that consumers can download your custom-branded icon to the home screen of their iPad.
The iPad is changing the way consumers behave and as such we as business owners must adapt. It has been and will continue to be one of the most successful consumer products of all time. It warrants to diversion of resources (time, energy, dollars) to put your firm in a position to capitalize on this growing and more importantly spending demographic.
For more information on how you can optimize your brand for use on the iPad contact tabletidx@mobilecardcast.com.
