THIS is the year of mobile. No really. This year it really is. If you’ve had a meeting with Google or attended a digital marketing conference or webinar in the past five years, this will sound as a very familiar phrase. For many digital marketing professionals, this statement has become their version of “The sky is falling”. Something they know will be coming, but no one really seems to have a pulse on when that fateful day will be. The push for mobile as a priority has instilled fear in many as they feel ill-prepared to conquer this unknown beast. So far, though, the year of mobile has still not come to fruition. Or has it?
It all depends on how you look at it and what mobile means to you, your company, and your bottom line. If you purely look at it from a search volume perspective, it appears that 2015 actually will be the year of mobile. As eMarketer and others have recently reported, mobile search volume has overtaken desktop search volume. Mobile ad spend is also expected to be nearly equal to desktop ad spend this year and is predicted to surpass it in 2016. Looking at it from a revenue perspective though, mobile sales
still only account for about 10% to 15% of overall online sales.
While all these numbers paint an interesting picture of the device landscape, none of them actually get to the core of whether this will be the year of mobile. The only thing that truly matters is where your customers or prospective customers are. Mahatma Gandhi really said it best: “A customer is the most important visitor on our premises, he is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption in our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider in our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favor by serving him. He is doing us a favor by giving us an opportunity to do so.” Therefore, the single fact that people are looking for you on mobile, reaching out to you on mobile, and interacting with you on mobile should be enough to make this the year of mobile.
So the answer is yes, 2015 will be the year of mobile. Just like it will be the year of desktop, tablet, phablet, the internet of things, connected cars, and talking fridges. Why? Because wherever we have the opportunity to interact with our customers, we need to make it a priority to do so. Are you ready for it?
