(Newswire.net — February 3, 2016) — With more and more of their customers using their smartphones to look for information about their products and services, companies and organizations that maintain a web presence can no longer ignore the impact mobile users have on their bottom line. Leveraging the unique benefits of a mobile website to boost customer engagement and conversion is an efficient, cost-effective strategy for increasing sales.
Customers Buy More Often On Mobile
In several recent mobile e-commerce studies, mobile customers made purchases more often than customers visiting a site on tablets or desktops by a very wide margin. This is particularly true of users searching for information about local businesses: 78% of those searches resulted in a purchase. While that’s a staggering statistic by itself, it also notably goes against conventional e-commerce wisdom that tends to assume that mobile users only start their purchasing decisions on their phones and complete them on their PCs or in brick-and-mortar stores. It turns out that customers who look for you on mobile are also more likely to buy from you on mobile.
Armed with this knowledge, your company’s mobile website can optimize its homepage and landing page elements for the mobile experience and focus on really streamlining the mobile transaction. Larger, more “tappable” add-to-cart buttons, faster-loading product pages and a more intuitive, pared-down checkout flow can help your mobile website convert more customers and make more sales.
Mobile Coupons: Your Secret Weapon
Mobile shoppers statistically love using coupons while visiting their favorite stores on their phones. In a recent mobile e-commerce study, 75% of customers who completed a purchase on their phones had redeemed a coupon in the course of the transaction. What’s more, an overwhelming majority – over 80% of users polled in the same study said they’d be more likely to purchase from a mobile website if they were able to use a coupon for that store.
To put this incredible statistic to work for your mobile website, your company can create mobile-only coupon codes exclusively designed for your website’s mobile visitors. You can include it in an unobtrusive pop-up or message that only appears on the mobile version of your website, or your company can create a coupon code that works only for mobile visitors and post it to its social media channels for greater outreach. This latter tactic also has the added benefit of increasing customer engagement on social media channels, as well as promoting long-term customer loyalty.
Making the Most Out of Special Events
It’s common knowledge that Black Friday – the fourth Friday in November and the day after American Thanksgiving – is the biggest shopping day of the year for many retailers. What’s less commonly known is that nearly 35% of purchases made on Black Friday in 2016 were made on mobile devices, mostly smartphones. That amounted to over $1.5 billion in Black Friday sales on mobile alone, making it a growing factor in online holiday sales strategies.
Your company’s mobile web presence can get the most mileage out of the holiday shopping behemoth by optimizing its content to the holiday shopper. Mobile customers can be offered sneak peeks into your upcoming holiday specials, sign up to receive mobile-exclusive deals and coupons and receive tailored calls-to-action that place bigger-ticket items on your store more easily at their fingertips. Inbox deals generated a sizable minority of holiday mobile sales in 2015, so it’s a good idea to prominently encourage your customers to sign up for your email newsletter on your mobile site well before Black Friday arrives, and then using your newsletter to keep them in the know.
Opportunities for Consistent Branding
Though the mobile platform is gaining ground as a primary means of interact with their favorite brands, the reality is that a company’s mobile website is just one of the many avenues through which customers engage with a business and its offerings. A well-designed mobile website is an opportunity to present a strong, cohesive branding message for first-time customers. It’s also an opportunity to deliver a consistent branding experience for customers that have previously engaged with your business through other platforms. Making intelligent mobile-optimized use of email opt-in forms, social media graphics and valuable content are all ways that a company can ensure mobile shoppers get a full picture of the company’s offerings on that platform.
Mobile websites can also be a valuable customer service tool by making support channels easy to find and support flows smooth and intuitive. This includes making sure that mobile users can easily log in to their accounts on their phones, check on orders, and contact you with any issues or concerns by making all of the navigation elements “tappable” on mobile screens. These strategies engender consumer trust and grow customer relationships, leading to more confident shoppers that are more likely to buy from you and recommend you to their friends.
No More Customer Bouncing
One of the key elements of responsive web design is a fast loading times for each of your site’s pages, including the homepage. Many customers shopping on their smartphones may still not have a WiFi or even a 4G connection, and for these users, a fast-loading mobile website can radically improve the customer experience, leading to more interaction with the site’s content. When a customer’s level of interaction with a mobile website’s content increases, so does the customer’s engagement with your site’s calls to action and major offerings. Mobile-optimized sites simply get your customers to the products they’re looking to buy faster, boosting your bottom line and earmarking your site as a pleasure to use in the customer’s mind.
There are many benefits to a business or organization having a web presence that’s optimized for the mobile-browsing experience, and these benefits often translate into tangible sales results. Ultimately, a growing number of customers are looking for your company’s sales and offerings on their smartphones, and it makes practical sense for your business to meet them there.
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