Mobile use in the 21st century has taken on a life of its own. People are now not only making and receiving phone calls on their mobile, but also continuously checking email, social media sites and text messages. Learn how to understand mobile content.

A growing contingent also watches TV on their mobiles too, as well as browsing more internet sites (thanks to increasing awareness of the need to be mobile-friendly and the mobile industry bending over backwards to lure the population away from PC‟s).

Almost everyone on the planet has at least one mobile device – 70% being the latest combined estimate from data analysis sources.

In short, people have become mobile addicts. Mobile phones in particular are “more important than toothbrushes”, as one Facebook user recently put it.

Once you realize this, you also realize it is more imperative than ever to “go mobile” with your marketing. You may be missing a huge, lucrative segment of your market, should you continue to ignore the necessity of mobile content in your sales funnel.

What exactly is “mobile content”?

That’s no secret: To boil it down to its rawest essence, it’s anything that is read, listened to or viewed on mobile phones. (And nowadays you can add other related mobile devices such as iPads, palm pilots and iPods too.)

Typical examples of mobile content:

• RSS feeds
• Apps that give you information (e.g. nearest restaurant, traveling conditions for your area, web stores carrying products you want)
• Apps that help you function more effectively (e.g. organizers, calendars, voice reminders)
• Books on audio
• TV shows
  Books in a reader such as Amazon’s Kindle
• Videos formatted for small screen
• Your favorite music
• Instructional MP3 files
• Text messages
• Voice messages

We can thank social media, however, for giving mobile content that vital boost into collective overdrive: In particular, Facebook. This social platform has single-handedly revolutionized the way people interact, seemingly overnight.

Understand Mobile Content

One reason: In spite of not yet displaying mobile ads, Facebook is mobile friendly. You can check your Facebook posts and messages, keep up with your industry and your target customer’s most pressing needs, spy on your competition, see what the latest buzz is and get “real time” updates on all your most important people – all while “on the run”.

That’s made mobile devices the most natural way to communicate – and the method that almost everyone prefers.

Add to that the fact that children nowadays are more familiar with technology than most adults and you realize that this emerging demographic’s natural advantage and comfort zone with technology is multiplied exponentially with each new generation.

One major reason for the exploding popularity of mobiles: Using your mobile to read a book, listen to your music collection, contact friends and business providers and find that dry cleaners in the town you’re staying in for the week nowadays feels like a natural choice.

Think about it: It’s much easier to use one small device for all these functions – one that fits in your pocket (and acts as an organizer and address book, too).

The other factor to always keep in mind about how to understand mobile content: It’s immediate. People are buried under a welter of responsibilities and time constraints. When they want information about something, they want it:

• Simply
• Instantly
• Now, before they forget

They don’t want to wait until they can reach home and surf the net. And the mobile industry is listening to its market: Technology is becoming more adaptable and more friendly all the time.

Once you realize all these factors, it becomes more urgent than ever to understand mobile content, make sure all your web content and marketing campaigns are mobile-friendly, mobile-ready – and that you’re harnessing every bit of its radical power to grow your business – and profits.

Understanding Your Unique Mobile Market

Before you go rushing off to create an app or change your website format, however, are two vital pieces of groundwork you have to lay:

• Find out what your target customer is doing via their mobiles
• Find out if this group is by-passing PC use

In other words, you start back at the beginning again (it’s well worth your time) and ask that old retail standby question: “Where do they hang out?”

Add to that a new question: “How do they do it?” (Find out what specific makes and types of mobile devices they use.

Understand Mobile Content and Making Your Content Mobile-Ready

The most obvious start in becoming more mobile aware and how to understand mobile content: Look up your own websites and blogs on your mobile.

Now answer these questions about each site you checked out:

1. Did you have to scroll off the page?
2. Was it hard to read your website’s text?
3. Did you have to use the zoom function?
4. Did your layout fall apart on the small screen?
5. Were any components of your page missing (e.g. banners, Flash intro?)
6. Did you have to hunt for the most important information after you accessed your site?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, you will definitely need to take action to understand mobile content in making your content mobile-ready.

Knowing Your User

So the previous simple test takes care of knowing exactly what people see when they look at your sites. The next condition to factor in lies in knowing how your user operates.

Let’s look at a slightly less concrete factor: The psychology of mobile users.

• When do they access their mobile devices? Usually while “on the go”. It doesn’t take a big, fancy study to figure this out.

1. That’s most likely when you use your mobile
2. Google “when do you use your mobile?” and that’s the overwhelming answer, across all countries and time zones; in forums, polls and social media

Whether they’re on their way abroad or just going from their apartment to the gym… people most use their mobiles while traveling.

• What do they use their mobile devices for? Simply Googling forums, polls and Facebook pages revealed these common uses over and over again…

People use their mobile devices:

• As alarm clocks, timers and calculators
• To keep in touch with family, friends and industry contacts
• To network
• For entertainment (TV, games, music)
• To ask questions of industry experts, colleagues, JV partners and niche contacts
• To answer questions for customers, colleagues, industry experts, JV partners, friends and niche contacts
• Making spur-of-the-moment notes
• Emergency contact
• “Solve problems quickly”
• As a video recorder
• As a camera

When starting to think about how to understand mobile content marketing, be prepared for more market research. But relax – you don’t have to make your market research more complex than it needs to be.

Finding Out How They Want It

There are 2 easy ways you can assess your particular list or market’s mobile preferences, starting today:

1. “Just ask”. Poll your subscribers or ask the group you belong to on Facebook. Tweet the question to your followers on Twitter. (And remember to finish or frame your request with a strong call-to-action.)
2. Include a text area field for mobile numbers in your opt-in boxes. (Keep it simple.)

Proving Mobile Permission:

At this stage, all you‟re doing with the above is seeing how many of your new subscribers are willing to give out their mobile numbers to you.

They are implying permission, but when you are actually set up and ready to send out SMS Text Messages or Voice Messages, make your intentions clear by providing your opt in box with a radio button people can select to indicate they are giving you permission to contact them via your mobile:

In the world of mobile internet marketing, recording proof that you actually did receive an opt-in is possibly even more important than it is for the web – the CAN-SPAM act applies more stringently than ever.

If someone lays a complaint (and people do either honestly forget they signed up or simply get irritated if you send too many Text or Voice messages) you may be glad you have that proof handy!

But spell your intentions out (so they can‟t say they “misunderstood” they were giving you permission to mobile market) by using phrases such as the following suggestions beside your radio button or check box:

• “Check if you prefer SMS Text Messages”
• “Check here if you prefer Mobile Voice Notifications”
• “Check if you give us permission to occasionally contact you via your mobile”

That way, your autoresponder database will clearly show your complainant voluntarily gave permission.

One RSS feed you might wish to follow is Mobile Marketer™ , which provides current news and updates about anything applicable and relevant to the subject of mobile marketing – as this post on mobile marketing privacy issues demonstrates. In fact, that particular post provides a succinct list of laws, rules and organizations mobile marketers would do well to familiarize themselves with:

• Federal Trade Commission Act
• State Unfair and Deceptive Acts or Practices Statutes
• The Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (“CAN-SPAM Act”) and the corresponding Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) rules
• The Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 (“TCPA”) and the corresponding FCC rules
• Do-Not-Call Rules
  Customer Proprietary Network Information (“CPNI”) rules
• Industry Guidelines – e.g., Mobile Marketing Association, CARU, CTIA-The Wireless Association
• The Direct Marketing Association

The bottom line? Proof of opt ins is essential in mobile marketing.

Continue reading on how to understand mobile content with our next post “How to Make Your Content Mobile?”