Mobile First

Walmart’s great Sam Walton put it bluntly when he said: ‘There is only one boss. The customer. And he can fire everybody in the company from the chairman on down, simply by spending his money somewhere else.’

Your brand is the cornerstone of everything you do. Do you communicate your brand story effectively in an entertaining and positive way? With so many channels, it’s crucial to ensure your messages are being conveyed accurately and consistently across all of them. This might involve having detailed brand guidelines to ensure communication is seamless. If you’ve ever seen any of the John Lewis Christmas adverts, you’ll know the power of a great story. This campaign alone generates millions for the retailer each year.

Our mobile friendly website for Lactalis Pro

Whether you sell online or not, social and mobile are going to continue to grow in importance over the coming years for your business, but how much exactly? Research findings indicate:

• There are 8.3 billion mobile phone subscriptions worldwide
• Over 50% of global website traffic is via a mobile device (this was 10% in 2012!)
• 3.5 billion people use social media worldwide
• Social media users are made up of 90.4% of Millenials, 77.5% of Gen X and 48.2% of baby boomers
• Consumers spend up to three hours on social media platforms every day
• 71% of consumers who have a positive experience with a brand on social media are likely to recommend the brand to friends and family
• More than half of UK consumers now shop online and this will have been accelerated by the global coronavirus pandemic.

We played close attention to the user experience on our website for Citystore

All this means that as people reach for their mobile devices over laptops or desktops to search online and carry out tasks, businesses have to ensure they provide a slick mobile experience. It’s easy for consumers to tell when a website has not been created with the mobile experience in mind. And, importantly, Google’s algorithms focus on mobile-first websites too. If you don’t have a mobile-first website, your competitors may well be offering a much better browsing experience and making it easier for customers to purchase and share posts about their products or services on social media.

So, what can you do about this? The first steps should be to consider how your website and brand works across all devices. Do your customers get the same great experience across all channels or does your shopping cart fall short? Are pictures getting cropped off badly, or are words simply not scaling down forcing the user to scroll left to right? Is key information easy to find?

Once you have analysed your website, if the experience is not great, you should consider responsive design for any future updates.

Responsive web design is a term used to describe a website that has been designed and built with scalability in mind. Users visiting responsive sites have significantly better experiences which leave them with a positive view of the organisation.

Here are some great responsive sites you might like to check out:

• DJCA
• Lactalis
• GSA

If you would like help converting your current website to a mobile-friendly site, please get in touch with Arps Patel on 01252 820022 or email him on arps@prefacestudios.com