As most analysts have expected, mobile’s grow exceeding their estimates. A few days ago, Pew Research released a study that showed 56% of Americans are using smartphones (for Latino and African American users, those numbers are 60% and 64% respectively.)
That said, most businesses are still lagging in mobile adoption. According to a survey 1,800 digital marketers commissioned by Adobe, only 27% of companies have a mobile-optimized web site and 7% have developed a mobile app.
Congrats if you’re within either or both of these groups. If you’re not, there’s is still plenty of time to incorporate mobile into your enterprise.
Here are five mobile stories that you might of missed from last month:
#1: Insights from Harvard
Few would consider Harvard on the cutting edge of marketing thought. That said, the Harvard Business Review provides a great summary on the growth trends of mobile-only users: http://bit.ly/ZqLZhE
#2: SMS for Healthier Eating
Birdseye partnered with Share Our Strength and Healthier America to provide tips for better grocery shopping. Users receive up to eight messages a month that include ideas on how to save money, what to look for in the shopping aisles and links to recipes.
Why SMS? Households earning less than $30K annually use twice the volume of text messages than those earning more than $75K.
Learn more about this innovative behavioral change campaign at Mobile Marketer:http://bit.ly/11l4w9q
#3: The March of the Latino Shopper
It is no surprise that communities of color are more sophisticated mobile users. This is especially true in Latino communities. Research shows that 16% of Latino shoppers are making purchases on their mobile devices. That’s 25% higher than the general marketplace.
Approximately 200 Clark, Marathon, Phillips 66 and Sunoco gas station in Michigan, Ohio and Indiana are capturing the attention of drivers. The system connects to WiFi and Bluetooth-engaged mobile phones that pass within 300 feet of a transmitter, and the sends them an offer via push messaging.
Unfortunately, they do so without mobile user opt-in. So expect that loop-hole to close with the first class action lawsuit.
Some of the best campaigns rarely come from big brands. Case in point is New Belgium Brewing. Having launched a mobile app for their flagship Fat Tire Amber Ale last summer, NBB expanded their 2013 summer campaign to mesh mobile and social with more traditional media.
Whether you battled the crowds last week or scored great online deals this week, many more of you used your mobile phone this year. According to the National Retail Federation, 139M shoppers spent $59 billion on Thanksgiving weekend alone, with nearly 40.7% online—a 7.6% jump over last year.
What part did mobile play in this retail bacchanalia? Here’s some impressive numbers for you to process:
Mobile accounted for 16.3% of online sales (IBM Benchmark).
Mobile phones accounted for 58.6% of the traffic (IBM).
iPad drove 88.3% of the tablet traffic (IBM).
Mobile accounted for 25% of black Friday and 22% of Cyber Monday sales (Adobe).
eBay/PayPal experienced 511% increase in Thanksgiving Day mobile payment activity since 2010.
The impact of smartphones, especially when they’re attached to youth, powered these results:
30M Smartphones have been injected into the US since 11/2011 (comScore).
The iPhone 5 generated more mobile sales in three days than the iPhone 4S did a month, driving holiday sales (comScore).
38% of Students said that they’d do mobile shopping on Thanksgiving Day (Digitas).
32% of Students are likely to decline a Thanksgiving meal invitation if they know they would not be able to use their mobile devices while there. (Digitas)
So did you use your mobile phone when shopping this past weekend?
May is usually a transition month for most midwesterners — storing the cold weather gear and bringing out the hot weather supplies. We BBQ, we burn our pasty white skin, and we look forward to a little slower summer pace.
Mobile doesn’t take a similar seasonal shift. It’s been a race to curate an every expanding and diversifying mobile content pool. Here are 7 of the 15 items that I sent in May:
