5 Reasons Why Businesses Need To Embrace Mobile in 2016

Radio took 38 years to reach 50 million people. It took Facebook 3.5 years, less than 10% of this time to reach a similar audience size. The uptake of Instagram was even faster and achieved this penetration in only 6 months. Angry Birds did it in 30 days.

The digital economy has affected almost everyone on the planet and mobile has rapidly become the dominant technology in the modern world. The number of mobile devices sold worldwide is already greater than the number of PC’s sold. There are now more mobile devices in the world than there are people and an estimated 2 billion people leave home every day with their smartphone in hand. Below are 5 reasons why businesses need to embrace mobile if they want to stay ahead in today’s digital world:

36% of UK online purchases are now mobile (IMRG) and 78% of the US population shop by mobile (comScore). Until now desktop has been the primary way people access the internet but this has now been surpassed by mobile for the first time ever. Businesses should take advantage of this huge shift and ensure that their digital presence is optimised for mobile.

Businesses can now put their brand in their customer’s pockets. Instant accessibility increases sales and loyalty. Businesses can also gather information on their customers in way that has never been possible. They can interact with customers instantly and even send out timely messages based on interests, location and proximity.

People can now ‘Share’ content, ‘Like’ posts and ‘Tweet’ updates right from the palm of their hand. Businesses can even have their content go viral in a matter of minutes. Once content is shared, their friends and followers can see it. The more people that share it, the faster it spreads. Mobile opens up this opportunity to businesses to have their content shared to a wider audience in a very short amount of time.

Today’s consumers are spending over 85% of their time on their smartphones using mobile apps. Apps are more user friendly, offer greater functionality and deliver a much better experience than mobile-optimized websites. App indexing on search engines has also taken a huge leap. Google is now delivering app search results on mobile making it much easier for consumers to connect with businesses.

Employees love mobile as much as customers do. Mobile software is helping teams work better and collaborate more efficiently. This is increasing productivity and giving more freedom to employees. Businesses are now building their internal digital strategies around mobile first.

These huge changes in our digital world are opening up new opportunities for savvy investors and entrepreneurs. Is it time for you to embrace new technology?