Do you want to grow your business? This second series of articles goes beyond the basic ‘sell more / charge more’ advice to explore your options for business growth. In my role as Editor for The Business Show and Business Startup, I have talked with literally thousands of business owners and entrepreneurs about what they really need to know, not what a business guru thinks they need to know. This series is the result. Today’s blog looks at the importance of the mobile space.

Get Into The Mobile Space

According to recent research, many consumers now begin their purchasing decision via their smartphone, even if they go on to make the final purchase via desktop, telephone or in person. If you’re not in the mobile space, those same consumers will start their journey to purchase with a rival – and be more likely to end up with them, too.

The ideal solution could be to develop your own app, packed with information, content, product details and even a mobile commerce solution. You’ll need a developer to create a solution for each of the different platforms, including Windows Mobile, Android and Apple’s iOS. An added benefit is that people might find your business through app stores as well as web searches, but will they want to download and install an app to find out more?

If you don’t want to go the whole hog, then a responsive website is a good compromise. It can display all the same information that is on your desktop site, but presented in a way that reads well on a handheld device. Consumers appreciate the effort you’ll have made and the easier you make it for them to view your content, the more likely they are to stay with you – and the more likely they will be to make a purchase.

At the bare minimum, ensure that your website is viewable on the most common mobile platforms. Flash websites can be very, well… flash, but they won’t display on the Apple operating system, ruling out every single iPhone user as a mobile customer. And you know how ubiquitous they’ve become…

As smartphones and tablets become more powerful, sales of desktop PCs are in decline, meaning that your potential customers are increasingly likely to access your content in the mobile space. As this market grows, mobile commerce looks set to overtake ecommerce as the main revenue stream in the years to come. If you don’t have a mobile strategy in place already, maybe it’s time you started to think about it…

 

Next: Conclusion

 

If you find the series – or any of the articles in it – useful, please share them via LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, or your own blog. I’d really appreciate it, thanks. If you need professional copywriting for anything from your new web copy to marketing collateral and press releases, I’d love to hear from you. Get in touch today to find out how I could help your business.