Anchorage Alaska Web Design Blog

Modern website design needs to be mobile friendly

People can’t get away from their cellphones.

I’ve often wondered what groups of people were doing at a restaurants, sitting on their cellphones instead of talking to each other. I recently found out.

Check out these statistics. The average person does this everyday:

• Checks social media with their smart phone 17 times per day
• Spends an average of 4.7 hours on their phone
• Spends 1 hour and 15 minutes browsing internet with their phone
• Browses the internet with their phones almost as much as with other devices (80% vs 93%). 

I hear (startling) statistics like these, and I’m amazed that so few businesses really cater to cell phones with a mobile strategy.

Sure mobile friendly websites are important in this regard (and for SEO purposes as well), but in particular I’m talking about mobile marketing strategies. This is especially true for the service industry, and Alaska in particular.

Why Alaska in particular. Here are 5 reasons why.

1- Customers can do your marketing for you with their cell phones

What do people do when they visit Alaska?

1. They do fishing charters
2. They go hiking and camping with a guide
3. They do glacier or wildlife photo tours
4. They go on cruises

When people come to Alaska, their friends and family are keeping tabs on them, communicating via social networks, sending texts and pictures back and forth.

Morever, when people travel they tend to be on their cell phones more than computers because it is their primary navigating and communication device.

Letting customers do your marketing for you means giving them every opportunity to use their cell phones to support you. Things like:

• Prompting regular cell phone photos
• Making use of QR codes and beacons
• Posting comment updates on your social media sites
• Special cell phone referral discounts

Most importantly however:

2 – Customers’ pictures are excellent internet marketing tools

Whatever people do when they visit Alaska, they are not spending time in doors. They always have their phones. And they are constantly taking pictures.

These pictures are an incredible - and totally untapped - resource for any Alaskan business's marketing strategy. What better way to show potential customers how much fun they could have with your businesses than letting current customers show them for you.

This means inviting customers to post their pictures to your Facebook, Twitter, or website.

It means creating your own hashtag and utilizing spaces like Pinterest or Instagram as a visual slideshow to what your business offers.

And I don’t need to say how primed Alaska is for gorgeous pictures.

That’s paid marketing – as in they pay for your services and do your marketing for you at the same time. Considering that existing customer reviews for a business are as good as gold, this strategy is a goldmine.

3 – Alaskans love local Alaskan businesses

And they’re tapped in with their cell phones.

I’m not originally from Alaska. And if your reading this and living in Alaska, you probably grew up somewhere else too. People usually live in Alaska because they love it here.

And they tend to invest a lot in local businesses by

• Downloading businesses’ mobile apps
• Keeping tabs on businesses’ social networks
• Using phones to special offers (via text/email)
• Loyally regularly visiting a handful of local businesses

In cities down in the lower 48, I have seen businesses offer cell phone text discount codes/coupons to local customers. Mobile apps using technology to replace what had previously been pre-paid punch cards.

A cell phone is the most direct link to a person, and using that information to regularly engage with loyal customers is a great way to strengthen bonds and keep them coming back for more.

The point is that-

4 – Everyone is on their cell phones

You saw the above statistics about cell phone usage. Here are some more facts related to mobile marketing and business:

• Mobile coupons receive 10X higher redemption rates than printed
• Mobile phones are most common web access devices (more than PCs)
• Adults spend 10.1 percent of their media time on mobile

But despite the fact that adults spend so much of their time on mobile, and are significantly more willing to make decisions with their cell phones.

5 - Only 1% percent of businesses spend ads on mobile

If Alaskan businesses are a third of that I would be surprised. That may sound presumptuous – but how much time do you spend on mobile marketing?

In other words, you have a big fat opportunity to do something different. Especially in Alaska. Mobile adds can be:

• QR codes
• Coupons
• Discounts

Basically any offer that is made only for mobile.

I can only name a couple of business that use both a mobile app and text based promotions/confirmations/etc., and even in those cases, the mobile interaction is limited.

Any Alaskan business who decided to adopt a focused mobile marketing strategy would quickly set themselves apart from competitors.