Thirty-eight percent of American mobile phone users — 120 million people — access the web via their mobile device; fewer than 30 million are iPhones or Android phones. (Mobile Access 2010 Pew Internet and American Life Project). This percentage increases dramatically among the under-served 30% of the population without reliable non-mobile Internet access (Pew). The growth of the mobile web will continue to be very rapid in the coming years — and will have substantially more reach than iPhone or Android applications. According to a research report by Morgan Stanley, mobile web usage will exceed all other web usage by 2015.

This leads to a common misconception: that your organization must immediately “mobilize” its website, by creating a mobile friendly version of your existing website.

This approach misses two key facts: one, users are already using your website on their phones, and two, mobile web users have different needs than desktop users.

In reality, when planning a mobile web strategy, you should consider the following factors:

I. Web surfing behavior on a mobile phone differs from the desktop

Traditional web pages are a place where users seamlessly browse a multitude of links in a discovery process. Not so with the mobile web. Mobile web usage is relevant and successful when it can deliver the exact information that the mobile user needs or wants. Mobile browsers, even on smart phones, are not conducive to searching, browsing, or exploration. Sending someone to the mobile version of the front page of your website will likely not be useful to the viewer — or your organization.

Mobile web pages are effective when they deliver precisely targeted information. For example, simple or pre-populated forms, maps and location information, simple advocacy tools such as petitions, or simple instructions such as consumer or medical information. This is the type of content that should be converted into mobile optimized web pages and can be very effective for you and your constituents.

II. Mobile visitors have limited non-standard browsers with which to get information
Mobile phones come in all shapes and sizes. Even smart phones vary significantly. (If you have a Blackberry, try asking an iPhone user if your phone is “smart” and prepare to be teased.)

Most phones have little screens (see chart below) and render graphics poorly. Additionally, there are dozens of browsers and formats among the hundreds of makes and models. This requires building mobile web sites to the lowest common denominator. The lowest common denominator is text and images and not much of either. In some cases, it may make sense to create separate optimized mobile sites for iPhone, Android, and one for all others. This will depend on the particular use case and the audience. Media and content rich mobile sites may serve to frustrate rather than serve your audience.

III. How will I get people to my mobile site?
The technical and behavior differences between mobile phone web users and computer web users noted above impacts the ways in which your potential audience will discover the mobile site. Users rarely enter a URL onto their phones; instead, they follow links. Mobile sites are most commonly accessed via sent links (primarily text messages, Twitter, Facebook and email) and secondarily, through mobile search.

Your organization should have a strategy to engage its potential mobile audience at least via those primary channels. A successful mobile web program typically requires a call to action beginning with a text message (or Tweet or email) which conveys the preliminary information and then drives people via link to the mobile web page which has been optimized as discussed above.

The mobile web is big today and will be huge tomorrow. In order to win at the mobile web, you need to understand how it is being used by your audience and optimize your content for those purposes.

By Jed Alpert, cross-posted on the NTEN blog

The results from a new Harris Interactive survey show that consumers are increasingly more open to receiving SMS text messages alerting them to deals at nearby stores, restaurants, and other retail outlets. Some highlights from the survey include:

• Only 1% of consumers say they currently receive deal alerts on their mobile phones but 27% say they would welcome such messages, as long as they came from merchants they’ve given permission to send offers.
• Consumers between the ages of 18 and 34 are the most receptive with 42% of respondents saying they would like to get marketing messages from favored merchants.
• 37% of consumers in households with children would like to receive opt-in alerts and in families with children under six that rises to 44%.
• 22% of mobile phone owners responded that they make an impulse purchase at least once a week based on a sale or special promotional event.

Here at Mobile Commons we’ve seen these trends firsthand with our retail customers. One customer recently ran a 48 hour “weekend only” sale for its mobile subscribers that resulted in a 50% conversion rate and a 10% increase in their average purchase size. Another client has been averaging a $10 return for every text message they’ve sent this year!

If you’re interested in learning more about our program geared specifically to retailers please don’t hesitate to contact us.

The medical journal Pediatrics published a new study showing the effectiveness of using text messages to remind young patients to take their medication.

There were 41 patients in the study who recently underwent a liver transplant. They showed “significant improvement” in medication compliance after 1 year. The media age of the patients was 15.

Mobile Commons has worked with a number of organizations and state health departments, including New York and California, to test the efficacy of using text messaging to improve public health. We’ve seen these organizations and other health-related organizations use mobile technology to help improve smoking cessation rates, increase drug compliance, deliver vaccination reminders, and assist with blood pressure monitoring.

It’s also important to note that the job isn’t finished and there’s still lots more research to be done. As the researchers of the recent study commented, “the results of this pilot study are encouraging, however, larger, randomized controlled studies are needed to establish the efficacy of text messaging in improving medication adherence.”

If your organization is interested in conducting your own study using text messaging or phone calls to improve patient care, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We’d love to provide the platform for your research.

The CTIA released its semi annual report this week: over 740 billion text messages were sent in the first half of 2009. That works out to 4.1 billion text messages sent per day in the United States! That’s billion with a “B”. And what’s even more astonishing is that number is twice as many as last year.

With so much media and marketing hype around devices like the iPhone, it’s sometimes easy to forget the true killer mobile apps: phone calls and text messaging. They work on every phone and remain the most effective way to reach people.

So if text messaging is the most popular way to communicate in the world, and it’s popularity continues to grow, why isn’t your organization using it yet?