Don’t let mobile websites be your business’ telephone banking blind spot.
The other day, I was thinking about how slow I was to adopt online banking. It took nothing for me to go to telephone banking, but my mindset was stuck there for years. I knew about online banking, but my mentality was very much “if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it”. I liked telephone banking and it did everything I wanted it to do, so why bother? Then I switched over to online banking and I realizedI had a telephone banking blind spot.
Sometimes the way we use technology is just like telephone banking. It seems like it will do all you want it to do, you’re comfortable with it, and there is no impetus for change. I get that, because I’ve been there. I’ve looked at a new development and thought “Cool, but my (insert whatever you want here) works just fine, so why make the switch?”
Except that in business it is never that easy. Technology is proving that it can make or break a business, especially in tight economic times. And technology can change the way we all interact with each other; Twitter and Facebook have changed how we keep in touch with our friends and they are now morphing into fabulous business tools. As entrepreneurs, we all have to take these lessons to heart. No need to be the last business on the block to take up the mantle of new technologies.
Mobile websites are just such an animal.
With the growth of mobile devices and a growing segment of the population using mobile devices to access the internet, mobile websites promise to grow too. Joshua Odmark wrote about this promise and explains some of the potential for business growth in his article “Top 10 Reasons Your Website Should Go Mobile”.
Here are the 10 reasons he states:
1. Google has a separate index for mobile content.
2. Your regular website is not going to cut it.
3. 1/5 of Americans access the mobile web each day.
4. Mobile web will overtake the desktop within 5 years.
5. $1.6 billion purchased from mobile devices in 2009.
6. 93% of U.S. adults own a cell phone.
7. 5% of the top 500 online retailers have a mobile website/iPhone app.
8. Mobile advertising spending will surpass $6.5 billion in 2012.
9. Users average 13 hours online per week, up from 7 in 2002.
10. There are an estimated 2 billion cell phones worldwide.
With this growing market at your fingertips, your business can adopt mobile website development, and it could even influence how the mobile web scene will grow over the next few years.