Is Your Business SmartPhone Ready?

Does your business have a mobile marketing strategy?  If you’re not interested in creating opportunities to market via mobile devices, you at least need to be prepared for them.  Nielsen expects smartphones to account for more than half of the US mobile phone market by 2011, is your business ready?

SmartPhone Quick Statistics

• Only 3% of smartphone users only use their phone for voice communications only
• 50% of smartphone users have Wi-Fi
• Slightly more males (53%) than females (47%) use smartphones
• 2/3 of smartphone users are personal users and 1/3 are business users

Get Your SmartPhone Game Tight (i.e. business ready)

Create A Mobile Version of Your Website & Blog

50% of Smartphone users have Wi-Fi, and that number is only going to increase.  As users utilize their cell phone for internet access, it’s imperative that your website and blog is mobile friendly.  If your site or blog is run on WordPress , there’s a plugin that does it for you. HERE

Get your site and blog easy to use via cell phones.  I recommend drawing back on Flash applications and any other format that cannot be viewed on most smart phones.

Is It Time For An App?

It’s time to  take a serious look at creating a mobile app for your business.  The IDC (International Data Corporation) is predicting this to be a banner year for mobile apps.  They’re predicting that iPhone apps will triple, Android apps will quintuple, and the Apple “iPad” arrives.  Obviously the mobile app business is big.

However, this does not mean that you 100% need an app.  ONLY CREATE AN APP IF YOU CREATE VALUE.  Simply creating an app that distributes content or blog posts is a waste of your time and you’ll find little adoption from users.  As app users grow, so does competition.  Without a compelling app, your will most certainly be lost in the vast void of noise.

Look Into Location Based Opportunities

Last week at SXSW, FourSquare added 100,000 users in 10 days.  If there was any doubt in your head before…get over it.  FourSquare is a player and here to stay.  If your company can take advantage of utilizing FourSquare for marketing purposes, do it.  Here’s a quick post how.

More tools will be coming down the pipe regrading Location Based, get your creative juices flowing for opportunities to take advantage of them.

Make It Easy To Buy Your Stuff

Make it easy to do business with you.  Offer a variety of options for customers to give you money.  Look into smartphone payment systems like Square or TabbedOut, and PayPal’s mobile App.

So even if a mobile marketing strategy isn’t a top priority for your business, you need to be prepared to meet users where they’re at…and they’re using smartphone platforms.  Get your business ready.

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Scott S. Bishop is editor for Real Time Marketer and a marketing strategist with a specialty in social media.  He is an avid blogger and active across the net.  He is @thescottbishop on Twitter

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Tagged as: apple ipad, business users, cell phone, marketing strategy, mobile apps, mobile marketing, mobile phone market, nielsen