[Online presence 3] Get mobile-ready

Now is the time for South African companies to invest in building their mobile presence. 39% of South Africans access the internet via their mobile phones, and this percentage is set to grow (Source: DMMA).

If you haven't already, I would recommend you consider planning a mobile marketing campaign to increase your customer interaction and boost your revenue, like many other South African companies are doing. For example, online clothing and accessories retailer, Zando, saw the opportunity to extend its shopping experience to SA's growing population of mobile users and shoppers. Now, over 20% of its revenue is attributed to mobile sales.

Here are four ways your business can do the same:

1. Create a mobile optimised site

Make sure your site is mobile device friendly - the way your site looks on a smaller smartphone screen will be very different to a desktop PC. According to EConsultancy, traffic through mobile devices has increased from 2% to 19% of total network clicks over the past two years.

Google provides three ways that a business can optimise its site for a multi-device world. The most successful of these is responsive web design, where your site is configured to use the same set of URLs on all devices, but uses intelligent coding to change how the page is rendered according to the device used - mobile or desktop. This is the first step in ensuring that it is easy for your customer to get to the right place, when and how they need to.

2. Make it easy to navigate

Now that the customer has found you while walking down the street, it must be easy for them to find what they want and navigate around the page.

Your site layout should be simple, with uniquely mobile features - incorporating sound, sight, touch and location - to maximise user experience. Zando found that the key to increased purchasing action is fewer steps in the buying process - the fewer clicks a tech-savvy, on the move consumer has to make, the more time they have for continued action. Once the retailer fully optimised its mobile ads and gained insights into the purchase funnel from mobile devices, it discovered a decrease in its campaign cost per acquisition of 45% over a two-month period. In June 2012, Zando credited 3% of its total revenue to m-commerce campaigns and since March this year, the revenue brought in by these campaigns is over 20%.

3. Make sure you are found: "M-Advertising"

Your site must be ready to handle any consumer, on any device. By optimising your site for mobile, your existing AdWords campaign activity will increase because your business can be found anywhere. Google AdWords is a service that lets you create and run ads for your business, quickly and simply online, connected to your website. Zando found that by creating a mobile optimised website and adapting to a mobile focus, that its AdWords search conversion rates increased by 260%, and sales spikes by 572% in high season.

The new Enhanced AdWords campaigns will help you reach customers based on context like location, time of day and device. When used on a mobile device, Enhanced campaigns promote simple use and increased connection between the customer and business. By adding your address, phone number and maps to your ads - creating ads with local extensions - you can attract local customers looking for what you have to offer. Two out of three smartphone users visit a business after searching for local information on their phones, so make it even easier for customers to get in touch by enabling a "click to call" option when your ads appear on the smartphone, which enables call extensions in your AdWords campaign. Also, add "click directions" to your AdWords campaign to immediately direct your potential customer to your location with just one touch.

4. Measure your consumer behaviour

Use Google Analytics to measure the success of specific mobile campaigns that are running, and to identify the key insights that will improve the site's functionality for the customers visiting it. This in-depth tracking is essential for a mobile strategy: features can be adjusted or changed to ensure that the site is focused on what the customer needs by rewarding the campaigns that work, and immediately acting on those that do not produce results.

Mobile is here, so get mobilised and put your sweat into making your customer experience optimal and exceptional.

For more:

• Bizcommunity: [Online presence 1] Out of sight, out of mind by Luke McKend
  
• Bizcommunity: [Online presence 2] Get socialising online by Luke McKend