You most likely know from personal experience that smartphones and iPads have transformed how we consume information and entertainment.
We break out the little screens during television commercials, in the grocery line and while we shop in a store. Internet-connected gaming devices add more screens to our lives. And the battle for living room and family room screen dominance has just begun.
Many people who don’t have to do a lot of typing or other computer-intensive work have abandoned desktops and laptops completely and use their pads and smartphones for all internet and e-mail use.
Being findable and useful on mobile devices by using responsive design, and being ready for the types of activities conducted on mobiles is a great start.
A great case can be made that we spend too much time with our screens, but I’ll leave that one for the sociologists. All the statistics say this is our new reality, and the trend is for more.
This has created a lot of breathy articles and studies on the future of “cross-screen engagement,” but I’ll focus here on what marketers can do to about getting leads and sales today in the multi-screen environment.
Being findable and useful on mobile devices by using responsive design, and being ready for the types of activities conducted on mobiles is a great start.
Start here
This process begins with strategy, not tactics. Talk with your team at a high level about what people might hope to find out about you on each screen, and what you can offer to convert them into a prospect or customer.
Let’s use a regional car dealership as an example (you can thank me for not using the pizza example, which has been beaten to death).
This brings just about all of the screens into play:
- Television for national and regional branding and promotion.
- Gaming screens, with auto brands paying to play in popular titles.
- The desktop or laptop for a deep dive into automotive offerings and specs.
- A tablet for looking over car photos and reading reviews.
- A smartphone for dealer locations and hours, and after-purchase, for scheduling service.
- Social media on most screens. “What do my friends think of the Subaru? What are they driving?”
Acting on your ideal mix
Once you decide on what prospects and customers might want from you on every screen, assess your current offerings and their strengths and weaknesses. Next, be aware of the advertising technology available for each of these formats.
Location: Staying with the example of the car dealership, a Honda dealer could run a smartphone-only campaign geotargeting a radius of, say, 15 miles for a special giveaway tied to completing a test drive.
Click-to-call: Advertising that spawns a “click to call” button is great for our clients because it provides an excellent combination of immediacy, accountability (area code, time, and duration of call logged in reporting), and connects directly to lead generation or sales.
Couch-browsing shopping behavior: Tablets have moved deep internet browsing out of the home office into every room of the house. This has moved significant online shopping and browsing time into a more relaxed environment. Based on this knowledge, it’s no surprise that we often see higher clickthrough rates, conversion-to-sale rates, and higher overall purchase totals from iPads and other tablets.
Cross-screen attribution: Yes, we can track and credit site traffic, leads and sales across screens for a complete look at return on ad spend. Talk with us to find out more.
Don’t yearn for the simpler days of paper and television, and the era when people actually watched the commercials. The multi-screen world is much more adaptable to your business needs and goals and much more affordable and accountable.
