IMPACT seeks the business reason or problems before proposing solutions, strategies or executions. When formulating solutions or pondering client requests, I always take a step back and address three questions. Will a potential solution:
- assist in the acquisition of consumers
- shorten the monetization cycle by moving prospects to consumers more rapidly
- save the business money through optimization
This decision tree is particularly useful when clients are pondering “mobile solutions” for their business. Don’t misinterpret me. Mobile is extremely important to your business if it makes sense. In addition, everything you do should be done in a manner that doesn’t inherently EXCLUDE mobile. However, does 100% of your site need to be mobile? Do you have to have a TXT messaging intiative? Do you have to have an iPhone app for that?
Perhaps, but it is IMPACT’s belief that you should answer those three questions, first, in order to evaluate the value to your business versus the cost of the work.
That said, even I was surprised by the data in this article from Wired Magazine concerning Apple’s battle over gestures. Based upon a Strategy Analytics study, only 5% of mobile devices have touch screens. In the next 3 years, that number is projected to grow to 30% but right now it is only 5%…
Ponder this for a moment. This means that less that 5% of all mobile devices are iPhones and that only 5% of all mobile devices, worldwide, have a touch-based interface. For all the hype that iPhones and Apple’s app store gets, it doesn’t seem to me that they have that much market share…
Could it be that Blue-collar American is still worried about simply having a phone… and the $400+ super-sexy “app enabled” phones are nothing more than an item on a wish list a this point.
Just a little something to make you go, “hmmmm”…