Here is some good news for brand marketing managers who are working with limited budgets and have a plethora of options to spend money and time on. According to this study mobile consumers prefer to use a mobile website over an app when using their phone to shop.
With this chart you can justify making one good mobile site as opposed to trying to figure out all of the different app platforms and building one app for each, not to mention the challenge of promoting the app to mobile consumers. It seems much simpler to build a good mobile site and promote your brand which will automatically lead consumers to the mobile site.
A good mobile site for each of your dealers makes the most sense as from this same article comes this bit of information,
Whereas only a small minority of respondents have used their mobiles to actually make a purchase, many more are comfortable using their devices to aid in their purchases. For example, 4 in 10 respondents from the US – and about one-third from the UK – say that they have used their mobile to find a retailer’s nearest store or opening times. Both figures represent an increase from last year.
Meanwhile, half of the US respondents have used their mobile to compare prices and look at product reviews while out shopping, up from just 20% last year. Similarly, the 43% of UK respondents reporting having done so is a marked increase from 19% last year. Predictably, younger respondents are more likely to engage in these activities – including a majority 61% of US respondents aged 18-34.
The popularity of smartphones and the advances in html 5 make a dealer mobile website an easy and smart way to reach consumers who are literally in the market for your product and physically close to one of your better dealers, if not in their store.
Your ad builder or marketing portal should be smart enough to allow dealers to build mobile landing pages from your approved templates. Templates that present your brand in a mobile friendly format and allow your dealers to add their unique local sales proposition. The system should host and monitor these sites so you can track and react to how each template performs.
The technology is here, it’s time to take advantage of it.