You know, I can actually remember before cell phones were in existence. There is probably a large percentage of you that can remember that as well, but there are some of you that struggle to remember that.

In fact, I remember when handheld video games were just coming out, and believe me, they were quite archaic. They were black and white with “tinny” sounds and so on.

Remember the Game Boy?

Then I remember when the palm pilots begin to come out. And it was so fascinating that technology had advanced so much that you could have a piece of technology in your hand. It was like a mini computer. Do you remember that? You could actually store Word documents and files on a little palm pilot. You even had your address book in there. You could take little notes and stuff. It was truly amazing.

Today, that stuff is totally outdated. It’s as old as the hills.

But, what would you say is the big thing today? I’m here to tell you that It’s mobile. Everything has mobilized, and I don’t even need to tell you that. I mean, you know what it’s like to have a smartphone, and to basically have your desktop computer and everything that’s available on it also available on your smartphone. The power of computing is now available on these small little devices called smartphones. It has escalated at a rate that is exponential. And the fact of the matter is that marketing is going mobile as well. It is so important that you take your marketing along with this trend. You must move with the trend.

If you decide today, “I am not going to go mobile with my marketing,” then you are going to be left in the dust. And that is what this blogpost is about.

What I want to do in this blogpost is explore mobile and look at some trends together. Then I want to show you some options that we have available today to begin moving your digital marketing into the mobile space, so that you can get ahead. I want to give you the chance to not only compete well, but to get ahead, and do some damage to your competition.

So, let’s begin with some statistics. According to IDC, 49% of the entire United States population uses a smartphone.

That’s an astronomical number. That is 153,860,000 people to be exact. That’s millions and millions of people who have smartphones. And get this, by the year 2017, the percent of smartphone users is expected to reach 68%, if not more. I really want you to see that the trend is going mobile. It’s not going to be desktop computers in the future. There will still be desktop and laptop computers around, and we will still use them for typing and for computation. But for searching, research, and finding where we want to buy stuff, and go out to eat, it’s going to be mobile.

And so it’s very important that you start now moving your digital marketing towards mobile.

Google tells us that 61% of the folks will leave your website if it’s not mobile optimized.

This is so important. Especially if Google tells us this, because Google is the giant that has the data, and if they give us some information like this, we better sit up and pay attention. And Google is saying that 61% will leave your website if it isn’t mobile optimized.

Meaning that if your website does not look right on a mobile device, people will leave it and search for something else. I’ll talk about that more later.

But first let me show you this graph by BIA/Kelsey. They say, “Local mobile searches are projected to exceed desktop searches for the first time in 2015”. What does that mean? Well, what that means, is that right now people are searching for your product, or your service, using both desktop computers and mobile devices. But right now, desktop computers and laptops are the primary method of search.

By the year 2015, mobile will have exceeded those personal computers.

So, that means that people are going to begin in the next few years, looking on their mobile devices for what you have to offer. Yeah, I know that they are already doing that, but it’s going to exceed desktop and laptop computers in just a couple of years. So I am encouraging you, I am asking you, I am compelling you to move your marketing with the flow of the general population. Make sure that when you are looking at your marketing strategy and plan, that you incorporate mobile into this thing. It’s imperative. It’s necessary. It’s essential.

94% of smartphone owners look for local information on their phone, and when searchers seek local information, 70% connect with the business.

What that means is that there are hundreds of thousands of people making searches for local information using their smartphones. When they find local information on their smartphone, 70% of those folks connect with that business. So it’s very important that you have a local presence optimized for mobile.

Some Bad News First

Here’s some bad news. Picture a guy who is so excited out in the wild because he found a real, live bear cub. Who wouldn’t like a cute little bear, right? So he stoops over and he picks up this little teddy bear, and he’s holding it up for his friend to take his picture. However, he is totally oblivious to the fact that a huge mama bear is roaring up behind him.

That’s what happens when you start engaging in digital marketing, but you’re not aware of what’s coming. You know, you might be proud that you have a website, which is kind of like your little teddy bear. But if it’s not mobile optimized, nor mobile friendly, you are not going to be ready for what is coming. And the coming reality is that the general population, the largest majority anyway, is going to be searching for you on their smartphone. And so you must move with the trend.

46% of mobile users say they are unlikely to return to a website they had trouble accessing from their phone.

The fact of the matter is that this is already happening right now. Half of the population are upset when they look for something on their smartphone and they come up with a bad website. If they are looking at a website that doesn’t work on a smartphone, they are upset with it, and they’re not going to return to that website again. Is that you?

In fact, 34% say they would visit a competitor’s site instead.

So if people are searching for what you have to offer and they come up with a bad experience on their smartphone, they’ll leave you and go to your competitor. This is just some of hurtful news. I know this is kind of heavy. It’s bad news, but it’s so important that you get this. It’s so important that we understand from the beginning that this is what people want. They want mobile websites. They want your website to work well on their smartphone, or they may not do business with your company.

How It Works

Here’s an example of how it works. You find a website that probably looks okay on a computer, you know, a desktop computer. But it looks terrible on a smartphone. You cannot find the information that you want. Maybe, you are looking for a phone number, or a map, or directions, or a menu, and it’s just too hard to find. You have to pinch and zoom the screen and, ugh! It’s just frustrating. You’d almost rather just leave the website and go to another website that works better on your smartphone.

But if you have a mobile website, you have nice, big buttons that say “Call Us” or “Find Us,” maybe, “Home,” “menu,” “About Us,” “Our Services,” you know, “Map,” and so on.

It looks good and works well if you have a mobile website. But not everybody wants to have two websites. Not everybody wants to have a desktop website, and a mobile website.

So, what’s the answer? Surely with today’s technology there is a solution. There is. The solution is called “mobile-responsive websites”. In fact, Google said they would prefer mobile-responsive websites. Google prefers them because it’s easier for their spiders to crawl. It’s easier for them to get a grasp of the content of this particular company because they have one website that responds to whatever device is looking at it.

So let me show you how this works. Here we have a website that’s beautiful and it works well on a computer, a desktop, or a laptop. You have an easy navigation menu bar. You have a nice logo. You have big buttons that you can click. The company phone number is prominent. You just scroll down and find directions, and so on.

But check this out. Take the same website, and if you look at it on an iPad, it still looks good.

You have big buttons, nice pictures, and it’s easy to see and navigate in order to find your way around the website. View the same website on an iPhone and it looks just as good. Nice, big buttons. You can press the button that says “Call Us Today” and you can actually call that company right there on your iPhone, or your smartphone. Very, very sophisticated and yet very easy to accomplish if you work with mobile-responsive websites.

Basically, what you have is three websites in one. You have a computer website, a tablet version, and a smartphone version all in one. This is what we use for our clients because they work so well. They look good on all the devices. They work well and people who use them love them. They love the companies that have websites like this, because they are so easy to navigate.

In summary, I would just like to say this.

It’s time to go mobile.

Your visitors expect mobile so don’t let them down. It is only getting to be that way more and more. People are expecting mobile. They want it. They want your website to look good on their smartphone, so don’t let them down.

Stand out as a leader in your space.

Make sure that you stand out, and that you stand up tall. Many, many, many people are not paying any attention to this mobile world that we live in. Many small businesses, and I mean many of your competitors, are not paying any attention to this.

So if you will heed my call and you will pay attention to this, and take your marketing mobile, then you will standout as a leader because that’s the direction that things are going. You will be able to take the leadership in your space. You will make it easy for your visitors to take action. Isn’t that what you want with your marketing? Don’t you want people to have an easy way for them to take action, to give you a call, to fill out a form, or download something?

You want them to take action, right? So make it easy for them to do that. If they are finding out about you on their smartphone, then optimize that presence so that they are able to do their research and end up doing business with you.