Mobile is everywhere, but being such a ubiquitous device also makes it imperative that this platform is used to its fullest advantage for making one’s business popular and increasing its sales. There are a number of opportunities available in the digital space to businesses to enhance their popularity among the people with just few worthwhile efforts.
During his presentation at Internet World London 2012, Google’s Ian Carrington, Director of Mobile and Social Advertising Sales for EMEA [Europe, the Middle East and Africa] said that some of the big trends which we are seeing in the Mobile and Digital Space today comprise of;- Social, Local and Commerce
Social is getting bigger and bigger with the daily number of users operating Facebook account, Google+ account and all increasing at burgeoning speed.
Local, around 40% of queries taking place from mobile and relates to that user’s local area only.
Last but not least is Commerce, nowadays more and more people feel it is convenient to buy various types of products or services through their mobile phone and, believe it or not, these days there are on average 4 people a month who buy a FERRARI through their mobile phone. Isn’t it incredible?
In the year 2010, a prediction was made that by 2013 smart phone sales would overtake personal computer (PC) sales, but it actually happened in 2011, which just shows our speed of modernisation. Therefore, looking forward to ongoing changes we can say that, in just 3 years time, tablet sales will overtake PC sales and smart phone sales will be 3 times that of PC sales.
One may be amazed to know that there is around 52% UK smart phone penetration and that, for 28% of those users, all their online time is with the help of their smart phones. Above that 50% of people making their first connections to the web world start with search GOOGLE. Mobile is contributing to a huge extent with its ever changing scenario, as illustrated by the table below, which shows the huge change that occurred in the space of just one year.
Here are some more shocking statistics!
Half of the UK population already has one smart phone at this moment. Plus, there was an around 378% year on year growth in EMEA tablet sales in 2011, 38% UK tablet owners use it more than their TV, 12% of UK internet users own a tablet.
Just a few years back, on Christmas Eve we used to wait for traditional gifts and sweets but nowadays, for which all credit goes to our technology, people want to have tablets not even smart phones. On Christmas Eve 2011 a whopping growth of more than 23% week on week was noted for tablets whereas, in comparison to this, smart phone growth was just +11%.
Recently people have started to adopt the new trend of dual screening. Dual Screening means, that while watching TV, they start checking out their smart phones or tablets during the commercials. Around 53% UK smart phone users are already ‘dual screening’.
With ever increasing numbers of smart phones, there has been a huge increase in the number of Apps too which run on different mobile operating systems. One of the best examples of it is “DRAW SOMETHING”. This app is highly successful as more than 20m downloads have been carried out in a 6 week period, with revenue of worth $100k in just one single day. With such breathtaking figures it catches everyone’s attention to know what the success formula behind it is. Believe me there’s no great ancient hidden formula, it’s just mainly because of two basic reasons and they are:
Its operating platform where it is available i.e., Mobile Operating Platform.
Along with its most important aspect, the Social Element attached to it.
Therefore, by being on a mobile operating platform make it easy to capture a large audience as the Mobile Market is so huge and also, with the social element attached, it is just like the proverbial cherry on the cake.
Since the web is getting more and more social all the time this has made Zynga’s valuation more than $250m. Some more interesting facts: 28% of people check a social network on their smart phone before getting out of bed and 57% talk more online than they do in real life.
Today the world is getting smaller day by day as ever more people start connecting with each other and sharing many things online. G+, i.e. Google Plus, proves to be very vital by playing the role of Connective Tissue. Google Plus is the connective tissue across all the different Google products and it also helps to make them personal for us. Google+ is almost everywhere, whatever you use.
Take, for example, if you are researching which smart phone is best. So, while searching for it, one can find out about all smart phones which are trending and which one is the most popular and liked among the friends added to your circle. This proves to be very helpful as it also makes your search for various other things extremely easy, as it seeks out items for you. This results in an increase of Click Through Rates (CTR’s) of 5% to 10% as people feel that, if their friends liked it, they should like it too.
Google+ already has more than 170million users and 100million users visit Google+ at least once a month, with around 50million daily users. It’s the fastest growing social network ever and will be able to overtake Facebook very soon.
An example of a company which has been able to do very well with Google+ is Cadbury, which already has 1million followers for its brand. With the help of Google+ and its different unique functionality, Circles, the Cadbury brand was able to achieve such a grand success within a short period span, as an advantage of having it is that you can position and target the content of people who are more relevant to you. You can also show a different side of yourself, depending on what the needs of a particular user are. Google+ has functionality a little like a Skype; they call them Google Hang Outs. These proved to be very useful for Cadbury as they were able to get feedback from their followers regarding their different products and their different marketing campaigns, with respect to which they can adopt and make any necessary changes required.
Now focusing towards the Localisation trend: Local is getting more important with every passing day, since 50% of map usage is done through mobile phones, the majority of which is in regard to local areas only. One of Google’s recent innovations done is the launch of Google Glasses and bringing Augmented Reality on your mobile phones. Augmented reality is like putting up a layer over a physical world and, because one would be able to interact with the physical world in a completely different manner, it will enhance one’s experience also.
Lastly it’s time to know about the third trend, i.e. Commerce. While talking about M-commerce the first company that comes to mind is EBAY, mainly because the sales of EBAY are increasing daily. Actually, its sales are not important, but what is important is where it’s getting those sales from and it’s an eye opener to learn that the majority, worth $5billion in 2011, came via mobile phones whereas in 2010 it was just $2billion. Moreover, the company is expecting this figure to be $8billion for the year 2012. In the UK alone 28% of smart phone owners have purchased via mobile.
Another such example is “Paddy Power” who, 2yrs ago, saw only 10% online customers betting via mobile, but that has now increased to 49%.
23% of businesses in the UK today have a mobile optimised website, whilst the remaining 77% who don’t. With the sheer numbers who are opting to use Mobile for their online browsing, they will go elsewhere if they hit a non Mobile optimised site! You can see the difference below . Learn more about why businesses must go mobile
Thanks to Vishal Chhabria Intern for this guest post
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