By now I think we can all agree on the following: The sheer size of the mobile demographic makes it one that requires our attention as businesses; the mobile consumer is substantially different from the desktop consumer; and the better we understand the mobile consumer the better we can convert them to sales. This week we will take a look at both size and behavior of mobile users to better understand who they are and what they’re doing.
The argument can be made that the no technology since the advent of the automobile has had such a large impact on our society than the modern day mobile device. It is by far the most popular consumer product in our lifetime. Currently, there are over 321 million mobile subscribers in the U.S. alone, which equates to a penetration rate of over 101% (yes, there are more mobile subscribers than Americans). Those subscribers account for over 2.27 Trillion text messages per year as of 2012. The current day mobile device (which is more like a computer than a phone) has had an impact on all of our daily loves to some degree.
So what does that impact look like? It looks like mobile users are actively looking for information at higher rates than desktop users. Browsing is now the number one smartphone activity. Smartphone users are searching on their mobile browsers 47.7 percent of the time they are using their device. In addition, mobile users, who currently only account for 10% of global internet use account for 25% of global searching. This means they are searching exponentially more from their mobile devices than they are from their desktops devices.
Survey Monkey and digital marketing Agency iAcquire, recently joined forces to conduct a survey on “Search, Social and Mobile Behavior” and what they found was that 70% of mobile searches lead to an action within an hour. This is line with alternate industry studies which show the aggressiveness of mobile users; 61 percent called a business after searching, 59 percent visited in person and 90 percent acted within 24 hours. However, these actions are all dependent on having a mobile enabled site as 40 percent of users have turned to a competitor’s site if the website is not mobile enabled.
The size of the mobile demographic couples with their aggressive nature equals a huge opportunity for businesses to win at the local level; mobile is all about local. How to do this is easier said than done. In the weeks to come Monday Morning Mobile will explore “How to Win Local” in a four part series. Stayed tuned!
To see how your site looks on a mobile device today visit: www.TestMySiteNow.com.
