The mobile and connected world: challenges and opportunities for marketers

It boggles my mind every time I hear about the speed with which technology is changing our lives. In a little over ten years, mobility and connectivity have become ubiquitous in our society. Not only can we travel to almost any place on this earth, but we can also virtually participate in what is happening in any country in the globe. As we become more and more dependent on these technologies, marketers—including aspiring ones like me—should look closely at the challenges and opportunities that these technologies present. 

For the sake of a couple of laughs, take a look at this video that shows in a humorous way how technology has been changing our society:

This summer I had the chance to participate in a webinar on the trends and effects of mobility on people’s shopping decisions offered by two Google executives. They expect that by 2013 more than 50% of web traffic will come from mobile devices. Interestingly, today three times more smart phones are being activated across the globe than babies are born every minute. Furthermore, the trend is for all mobile devices to be connected mostly through wireless technologies. 

Implications for marketers

A couple of weeks ago, I was counting the number of devices in my household that are somehow connected to the web—five in total. I started to ponder how these connected devices were craftily developed to become not only touch points for marketers to communicate their messages, but also gateways to “virtual markets” where I as a buyer can interact with a potentially infinite number of sellers. This is the platform theory that companies like Apple (iTunes), Google, and Amazon are working so hard to create and maintain. Today cell phones, tablets, printers, TVs and even refrigerators are making it easier for all of us to shop at our convenience.

Changes in shopping behavior

The mobile and connected experience is changing our shopping behavior in many ways and I would like to share a few of them:

1. Social Media influence. Yes, we want to show our friends how great a deal we found online. More importantly for marketers to consider is the recent trend for consumers, and especially mobile consumers, to be much less influenced by traditional information sources and instead base their purchasing decisions on reviews coming from friends and families.

2. Price leveling. Mobile devices are putting the power of comparing prices in the palm of consumers’ hands. An increasing number of people can now access mobile coupons, compare prices, and tap into loyalty or similar programs all while standing in store aisles. 

3. Flash deals sites. Another trend empowering consumers is accessing sites that specialize in deep discount promotions. Sites like tanga.com and forums like slickdeals.net are becoming increasingly popular and many more specialized deal sites are springing up every week.

These and a number of other trends have serious implications for marketers, as new technologies seem to put pressures on businesses to gain efficiencies and share those with customers in the form of lower prices or higher quality. The underlining issue of this blog post is to remind us that an increasing number of customers are quickly adopting new technologies when make their shopping decisions. We have a clear example in the adoption rates of mobile devices.

According to Google, last year shoppers spent on average $300 from their cell phones, mostly on entertainment, electronics, and clothing. I’m sure that this number will continue to increase by leaps and bounds in the coming years.

Our challenge as marketers is to adapt to the requirements that mobile consumers present. Adapting to these changes include: 1) building mobile-optimized websites—designing for thumbs and not only for mice; 2) the usage of QR codes on physical products and marketing materials, and 3) understanding and exploiting new dynamics like mobile usage peaks during lunch, nights, and weekends, etc. 

The mobility trend is just the beginning of an era. For a sneak-peak of what is to come take a look at this Microsoft video:

 Many of the technologies presented in the video are actually available today.

Luis De La Cruz