With over half of your audiences interacting with your content on mobile devices, mobile optimization is essential for providing a seamless and enjoyable user experience. Audiences expect digital interactions that are fast, functional and accessible. Hitting those marks can mean the difference between a converted customer and a missed opportunity. In fact, 61 percent of customers say they are more likely to purchase from mobile-friendly sites.
Mobile Optimization Tips for Every Platform
Different channels require different optimization approaches to maintain a consistent brand identity and a quality user experience across every platform. There is no one-size-fits-all solution. This means organizations need a targeted approach for each marketing channel they use. Here are tips for various marketing channels:
1. Website: Prioritize a responsive design.
A “responsive design” adapts to the screen size, resolution and format of the user’s device. From a web development perspective, many factors impact responsiveness, including coding language, image resolution and text format. From a marketing perspective, a responsive design represents a vital opportunity to adapt meaningfully to the visitor’s device experience. Style decisions such as short sentences, brief paragraphs and vertical organization can make content easier to discover and read. Consider how the user’s experience changes by device and shape designs around that behavior.
2. Email: Use subject line length to your advantage.
Effective email subject lines demand a fine balance between brevity, appeal and mystery. The visibility of subject lines varies by device. Account for differences in screen size, formats or user preferences when creating email subject lines and focus on delivering value from the first word.
3. Social media: Optimize image sizes for “scroll-ability.”
Because of the vertical design and constant reloading of social media feeds, content needs to grab the attention of users. This is a key reason images and videos are especially impactful on social media. “Scroll-able” content means that the average social media user can easily interact with it as they scroll through their feed, whether on a mobile device or desktop. Sizes and ratios vary by platform so be sure to size images accordingly. Fortunately, most royalty-free sites and graphics suites now can automatically size images by the most popular channels.
4. SMS: Brevity is key.
SMS (or text) marketing is native to mobile devices, making it a somewhat different optimization process than platforms that are largely integrated with desktops. Text marketing is dependent on short messages (often limited to only 160 characters) that can be captured on the screen all at once, or even just within the notification window. Keep content short and immediate, including shortened URLs and small, high-resolution images.
5. Search advertising: Emphasize your call to action.
Search ads are display ads that appear alongside search engine results when someone searches for the products or services offered by the advertiser. This type of advertising makes up a whopping 40.2 percent of total internet advertising revenues. Because ads are perfectly matched with every query, they are highly effective. As such, a compelling call to action is an essential element of search ads to motivate users to take the desired step toward purchasing from your company.
6. Voice search: Optimize for natural language and conversational patterns.
Mobile devices are increasingly embracing voice-first technology, particularly when it comes to search. Voice-first technologies such as Siri, Alexa, Microsoft Cortana and Google have changed the way we interact with our devices and this interconnection is only predicted to grow. Already, 68 percent of people use voice search digital assistants to find quick facts, with 27 percent using these functions on mobile devices. To meet this growing demand, it’s important to optimize for natural, conversational language.
Cross Platform Compatibility Requires a Dedicated Approach
When smartphones first entered the scene, businesses pushed to create mobile-friendly websites. Today, mobile optimization and design are the standard and are expected by all internet users. Any effort in “optimization” is dependent on one prerequisite: knowing audience behavior and preferences. If you don’t understand what your target audiences want and expect, it’s impossible to accurately address their needs and challenges, let alone their communication preferences and behavior. In today’s marketplace, where competition is high and other organizations are vying for your prospects’ attention, a dedicated strategy for optimizing their experiences, no matter the device or channel, creates a vital competitive advantage.
