We’ve seen huge demand from our customers over the past 3-4months for the development of mobile applications and mobile-specific versions of their websites. In fact, “do we need to build a mobile website or app?” has been the most popular question we’ve been asked in the early part of this year.

Clearly how to best capitalise on the mobile market is something on the minds of many business owners. Certainly the coverage of mobile marketing and development has been the hot topic of conversation recently in trade publications, blogs and across social media.

I’m always conscious that when something new comes along in the world of technology and marketing it tends to become the ‘buzz’ topic. With that comes added confusion as all of us ‘marketing and tech experts’ flood you with articles and information on the subject. It’s funny that with the access we get today to so much information and insight from so many different sources, it can actually make it more difficult to find a simple answer to the question you’re asking!

So I don’t want to go off on too many tangents today and answer this really simple question:

If you’re a small-to-medium sized business owner is now the time to build a mobile-specific version of your site, create an app or begin to invest in mobile marketing?

To answer that question I want to share with you a small bit of research we completed last week.

How many users are accessing your site on a mobile device?

Firstly, you can find this bit of information out really simply (and for free) if you have an analytics tracker such as Google Analytics on your site. It will tell you (as a percentage of overall users) how many people are accessing your website via a mobile browser. It will even tell you whether they’re an Android, Windows, RIM or iPhone user.

As an experiment, we looked at all of our client websites to see what the average percentage of mobile users on the site was historically, what it is today and how fast the change in percentage, if any, was.

Well, the results are really interesting and it’s fair to say that visits to our client websites via mobile device are growing at an ever-increasing rate. Take a look:

If you’ve read our blog before then you’ll know that, at Brinn, we believe that your website should at be the centre of any good marketing strategy. Visiting your website is the first action you want someone to take having responded to one of your marketing messages via social media, email, advertising, PR, search, an event or any other marketing channel you’re using. It should also act as the central place for great content that you can then push out across all of these different marketing channels.

So does the uptake of mobile technology change this approach? Definitely not, but it does mean that to stay relevant, we need to make the experience of visiting your website and taking the desired action just as engaging on a mobile website or app as it is on a traditional desktop device.

If your website is well coded and put together in the first place (and doesn’t contain too much Flash), then it should render the same on a mobile screen as it does on a desktop one. That’s great, but unfortunately that doesn’t mean your site will engage users in the same way. Mobile-specific websites need to be clearer, contain less information and allow the user to undertake a specific task quickly.

To illustrate this point, here are a couple of interesting facts about the difference between mobile users and desktop users:

- According to Microsoft 70% of desktop search tasks are completed in one week, while 70% of mobile search tasks are done in one hour. In other words, mobile searchers are ready to take action right now!

- 40% of mobile search is location based, which presents great opportunities if you run a local business. Many businesses are already making great use of apps and mobile sites that target a local user at the time they’re ready to make a purchase.

Basically, mobile users have a different set of needs and expectations than desktop users and building a mobile-specific site or app is a great way of targeting these users and getting their business. Unfortunately, your current desktop optimised website won’t do that. As more people move away from the desktop format as a means to access information via the web, the more your business will need to engage customers properly on a plethora of different formats including mobile and tablet devices. There may be 12% of users accessing websites via a mobile today but the numbers are going up fast!

What we’ve hopefully shown you is that now is the time to begin thinking about how your business can best utilise the mobile platform. We’re not saying you need to assign your whole marketing budget to ‘going mobile’ but be aware of this trend and get involved sooner rather than later.

So I’ve answered the question I set out to and have hopefully excited you about the new opportunities that mobile marketing can bring. Now it’s up to you to begin reading up on the subject further and deciding what your next step should be… or you can just give us a call and we’ll take care if it for you! We’ll leave that decision up to you!

As always, any feedback, comments or further insight are welcomed. Speak to you all soon.

The marketing world never stands still and the past 12 months have been no exception. The fast rate of development and customer uptake in the fields of social media and mobile have kept us all on our toes in 2011 and, as always, have provided new and exciting ways to engage customers.

But let’s not focus too much on what has happened in 2011 and look ahead to see what developments we think 2012 will bring.

This time we sat down with the whole Brinn team to pull together our list of marketing predictions for 2012. We came up with a huge list, which included everything from the sublime to the irrelevant right thought to the completely ridiculous! Instead of exposing you to all of these, and in the interests of brevity, we have instead carefully chosen our top 5 marketing predictions for 2012.

As always please contribute your own predictions in the comments section.

Here they are:

1. Huge Growth in Mobile Commerce and Marketing

Predicted by: Ally

In January this year I made my top five marketing predictions for 2011. I promised I would come back and review these towards the end of the year and, amazingly, we are now pretty much there. So will I feel all powerful with my fantastic ability to predict the future. Or will I be left feeling rather embarrassed like the leader of a religious cult who has wrongly predicted the end of the world? Let’s find out!

1. Price and value will be key communication messages

“Brands and retailers will be keen to communicate good value in 2011”

This prediction was bang on (if I do say so myself!). As high inflation and sluggish growth in the economy continued to bite, brands focussed on value as a key communication message. Organisations that were already perceived to be value brands hit the message home even harder (with the strapline ‘beat the VAT rise’ being used it seemed by almost everyone in January and February).

But even the more premium brands and retailers focused on value as a key marketing message. John Lewis continued to create powerful advertising campaigns centered round their ‘never knowingly undersold’ proposition.

The already price competitive supermarket chains also tried even harder to promote themselves as the best value with a range of ‘Price Promise’ initiatives. New Tesco Chief Executive Philip Clarke was also keen to focus on promoting value in new ways.

Verdict = Bang On!

2. Social and mCommerce will Become More Prominent

“As the uptake of smart phones and social networking continues to grow exponentially, expect to see both of these provide new ways for us to consume products”

I was making two points here – that ecommerce will spread and merge into the areas of social media and also mobile. I would say I was right with mobile but it’s still too early to tell with social media.

On the mobile front, the growth of web content consumption via mobile devices has been huge. For all of our clients’ websites we’re seeing around 10% of traffic coming in on mobile devices now (up from about 3% this time last year). This will no doubt continue to rise and it has already had huge implications on the ecommerce marketplace. Almost all of the large online retailers now have mobile stores or apps that allow consumers to browse and buy much more easily on a mobile device. This will continue to grow exponentially and if you run an online store without a mobile store format then I’m afraid to say it won’t be long before you get left behind.

On the social media front things have been much more underwhelming. Sure, a few online retailers have launched online store offerings directly through Facebook, but it’s yet to become commonplace or take off in any real way. I would also argue that there is no real sign of this imminent movem towards social commerce is either. Integration with social media sites on ecommerce websites is becoming not only commonplace but also pretty much vital… but as for purchasing directly through Facebook, results have been pretty poor.

Verdict = Right AND Wrong

3. Smaller Groups and Smaller Networks are the Way Forward

“Although social networking platforms such as Facebook continue to grow their user base, consumers will begin to split their networks into smaller groups or use a selection of new, niche social networking platforms to engage with different groups they’re involved with”

On a personal level, this year I’ve noticed more and more the difficulty and frustration of using Facebook when many different social groups are all in the one place. I have close friends, acquaintances, work colleagues and family on Facebook but I don’t want to share the same information with all of them. Despite making a number of changes to how this is managed in Facebook, it’s still cumbersome and difficult to implement and there’s been no real progress on this front.

Google + was launched in the summer, which focuses on making the separation of different social networks much easier by allowing users to separate groups into different social ‘circles’. The launch of this platform was much anticipated and there is already a staggering 50 million users on Google +. However usage levels of the new platform by users still appear to be low as we all try to work out quite how it actually works!

This idea of separating social networks is still an extremely pertinent subject and one I believe will happen and will have big marketing implications in the future. Progress in 2011 has been slow and it’s still too early to tell what shape this will take.

Verdict = Not yet Clear

4. Online Search will Change (Nothing New There Then!)

“Online search is continually changing and when it comes to optimising websites for search engines this means the goal posts are always moving”

When I read this prediction back I though to myself ‘Duh! Of course online search will change – it’s always changing’. Maybe I just put this in to make sure I was right with at least one of my predictions!

And I was right – online search has continued to change and evolve with Google, as always, leading the way. Twitter updates were included in search results (before being removed again), ‘official’ sites were given more prominence at the top of the rankings and Google’s Panda 2.5 algorithm update appears to have reduced the benefit of link building from low quality directory and article sites. This all has implications on the way we effectively optimize our websites for search and look out for more changes, and more changes, and more changes to come.

Verdict = Bang On!

5. TV Advertising will make a Comeback?

“With online streaming, digital TV streaming and the new advertising model for sites such as YouTube, there is now once again space for the traditional TV advertising format”

We’ve all talked for so long about the death of TV advertising but I predicted that 2011 would be a year we began to realise that there’s still great benefit to be had from the 30-second TV ad format. I think it’s fair to say this prediction was correct. Firstly, with the growth of on demand and online television as well as the advertising now used on sites such as YouTube, the 30-second TV ad format has seen resurgence in popularity over online banner advertising and other forms of online advertising. Secondly, I feel advertisers have begun to fall in love with the TV ad format all over again. Firms like British Airways and John Lewis have put a lot of budget into creating adverts that really resonate with consumers and highlight the value of the brand. I think John Lewis have been much more successful than British Airways at actually achieving this but that’s a story for another day. One thing I clear though – the TV advert is here to stay.

Verdict = Bang On!

Just like Nostradamus himself I can’t be 100% correct all of the time! Overall though I’m pleased that the majority of my 2011 predictions were on the ball.

There’s always a lot of talk about the latest marketing methods and how they will completely rewrite the way we promote our businesses. For the past couple of years that talk has centered round social media and this was reflected in my top marketing predictions for 2011. Interestingly though, important a marketing tool as it is, it hasn’t completely re-written the rulebook. Yes social media is important but the fundamental principles of marketing are still the same and a lot of the other tools we’ve used for 50 years plus are still equally important in running a successful marketing campaign.

The lesson to take from this is that in a fast-moving discipline like marketing it’s important to stay up to date with the latest tools available - but just make sure you don’t forget about the old ones, they can be just as effective.

What will my predictions be for 2012? Well you don’t have to wait too long too find out - I’ll follow this post up with my 2012 predictions before the end of the year.

Traditional forms of marketing have had a pretty hard time over the past five years. Falling revenues, a mass exodus towards digital media and questions of their relevance in a modern online-based world. But now something interesting has happened - the tide has changed. Television and radio companies are announcing better results, the line between digital and traditional media has become increasingly blurred, and marketing experts and journalists are beginning to admit that traditional marketing still does, and always will, play an extremely important part in the marketing mix.

So why the sudden shift in focus?

What seems like quite a sudden shift in opinion is actually related to a number of ‘slow-burning’ factors, the most important of which is how technology, and more importantly the way in which we use technology, is changing. Mobile phones are a great example of this – the technological development and consumer uptake of new technology in this sector over the past 18 months has been astonishing.

We now live in a society where the Internet is widely accessible to the vast majority of the population at their fingertips and at any time. At the same time, the success of tablet devices such as the iPad has made the consumption of the Internet even more portable.

But how does this benefit traditional media and marketing methods? Surely this new technology will make it even more obsolete? Interestingly, the reality is actually quite the opposite.

The emergence of this portable online technology is blurring the lines between what we like to call ‘digital’ and what we call ‘traditional’ media and marketing channels. Let me give you a couple of examples:

The recent launch of The Daily, the first ever iPad only online newspaper is a joint venture between Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp and Apple. If you read The Daily on your iPad you’ll know that it’s laid out like a traditional newspaper (not a news website) - the only difference is it’s being displayed on your tablet device. This is an example of a traditional publishing company updating the way in which it’s content is consumed. So if you, as a company, decide to advertise in this publication are you advertising ‘traditionally’ or ‘digitally’?  Hard to say really.

Imagine your standing at a bus stop and a billboard advertisement catches your eye. Let’s say it has an offer on it that you’d like to find out more about.  You don’t have to wait until you get home to do it anymore (and let’s face it you would have forgotten by then anyway!), you can access it right now on your mobile phone. The chances are there may even be a barcode on the advert that you can scan using your mobile phone to take you straight the additional content. Either way the advertiser has caught your eye using the advert and, with the use of new technology, has managed to make you take action there and then. So if you, as a company, invest in an outdoor marketing campaign and lead customers to an online offer after they take immediate action are you advertising ‘traditionally’ or ‘digitally’?  Again, it’s pretty hard to say.

These are just two examples. Think about how we now consume so many things differently – radio, newspapers, television, the Internet, shopping, promotions, etc. So the lines between traditional and digital marketing are becoming increasingly blurred. Digital technology, such as that I’ve just highlighted, is becoming completely ingrained into our society. It’s no longer the case that the Internet is an entity that we consume when at home on our computers or at work – it’s there at our fingertips all the time and it’s changing the way in which we do everything – even advertise our businesses.

Traditional marketing was never dead (hate to say I told you so!)

Actually I’m lying, I love to say I told you so! The point I’m making though is that traditional marketing has never been dead – when you think about it the idea that when something new comes along it automatically means the old is completely obsolete it’s pretty ridiculous really.

The best marketing results always arise for the companies that understand that a good marketing strategy is about pulling together online and offline marketing activities. Traditional media such as outdoor or television can be a great way of building a brand and engaging interest but how do you make the consumer take action and engage with you on an ongoing basis? That’s often where online marketing comes in and it’s through creating the perfect blend of online and offline channels that the best results come from. Multi-channel marketing strategies aren’t just reserved for the multi-billion pound companies either – this can still be done with more modest marketing budgets.

Let’s stop talking about ‘online marketing’ and ‘digital marketing’

Hopefully what I’ve highlighted is that digital and traditional forms of marketing are becoming blurred to the point that it actually no longer makes sense to refer to them as separate entities. A marketing strategy that gets results will inevitably be one that utilises a perfect blend of marketing channels all pulled together by a strong, consistent message. So isn’t it time we stopped worrying about whether something is offline or online, traditional or digital, and just focus on building more successful marketing strategies? I think so, what do you think?

The Best of all the Free Marketing Plan Templates!

I’m known for preaching about why every business should have a marketing plan but the reaction I often get is

“I wouldn’t even know where to start!”

Creating a marketing plan is not as complex as you might think and that’s because you can actually write whatever you want!

A marketing plan is an internal document - it is used as a guide for your business to follow, so what’s in it is totally up to you. You don’t have to follow the rigid templates set out in many textbooks.

There are no rules when creating your marketing plan. It is for your benefit so write as much or as little as you like – the fact your spending time thinking about your marketing will in itself lead to better results.

Put simply, a marketing plan centers around documenting who your customers are, where you want to be and then setting out how you’re going to get there (using marketing).

Use this simple template (the best of all the free marketing plan templates!) to guide you through the process of writing a marketing plan… or don’t… it’s up to you!