The new internet marketing matrix
By Roger Parker
New devices to surf the internet are opening new game-changing opportunities for marketers. You can now target content suited to new devices, along with personal computers – multi-platform internet marketing.
Results generated by doing this are likely to be far better consumer experiences, far superior conversion and other end-results for marketers. This new multi-platform internet marketing is the other, less talked about half, of the new internet marketing matrix.
While many marketers focus on the spectacular rise of social media not so many have grasped the opportunities with new devices people are now using to surf the internet. Last year 306 million smart phones were shipped worldwide. This grew 74% from the previous year. Tablets look like they are heading on a similar exponential growth path.
In Australia smartphone users now number in the millions of people. 48.1% of mobile phone shipments to Australia recently were smartphones. In New Zealand, in 2010 there were an estimated 100,000 smart phones in use and the rate of growth rate for smartphones was 87%.
So what are people doing with these new devices? Well, people are using these new devices to use the internet in new ways. Smartphones, for instance, are showing different internet usage patterns than traditional mobile. They more resemble usage patterns of personal computers, broader and deeper internet use.
In 2009, researchers from Google and Stanford University analyzed peoples’ internet searches using different devices. They concluded “Search behavior on high-end phones resembles computer-based search behavior more so than mobile search behavior.”
Many businesses have not yet caught up with the shift occurring. When you have a new device websites are often not designed for it, as most are designed only for personal computer internet use at present.
When you hold a smartphone, it is a lot smaller than a PC. It fits in the palm of your hand. If you try and load a website on it, a website built for a PC, it either looks tiny on the small screen, or it has to be scrolled, giving people a very difficult user experience. Each screen you see on the smartphone may have only half a sentence or picture on it.
With advanced web marketing now, websites can be designed for a smartphone, and for a PC, and for a tablet if need be.
This whole field is metaphorically like TV, Radio and popular programming. In TV you had popular programs, or in radio, with the highest number of viewers or listeners. It became a major axiom of 20th century marketing that rates paid for marketing spots depended on the popularity for target audiences.
This is like the current rise of social media. The popular spots on the internet are important and content has to be designed to fit into it. Social media does have new functionality like sharing and so on. However it is, in the main, the new popular content. This may change, or be a moving target over time. The popular content has shifted quite quickly over time so far in the short history of the internet.
However with new types of devices, it is like comparing the difference in how ads are made between TV and Radio. That became the other major axiom of 20th century marketing. You had to make the content differently to suit each hardware or media platform to get it to work effectively. TV was made to be more visual and radio to be sound-based.
A similar matrix is appearing now in the Internet era. As new devices come on stream with mass uptake, new content forms have to be targeted to work on the devices to suit them. For smartphones smaller sites that fit the screen, less detail, and more focused on the tasks people use the phones to access the internet for.
Otherwise the sites are harder to use and a worse user experience than they could be. Whereas, PC accessed content, should be for a bigger screen, it may have more detail, depth imagery or options, and it should also more suit what people use PCs for.
In 2011 ResolutionMedia published survey results on “Multi-platform Search Behavior”, where they also measured differences in marketing outcomes. Unsurprisingly, they found “Providing mobile-formatted or mobile-specific content to mobile users can increase conversion by 75%.”
At the same time, the programming, the popular sites people want to access have to be targeted within each format. This is the other axis of the matrix. So, let’s say your target market is a big user of social media, content can be designed in social media that either fits a smartphone or a PC; or other device like a tablet (depending on what your target customers use).
It would be simpler for everyone if there was just one internet device most people used, like how we started with PCs and all we had to focus on was designing content to fit the popular programs. But like with traditional media the evidence is showing people are quickly shifting to using a mix of platforms (devices) for the internet.
A 2011 analysis published by Google found people used PCs and smartphones more during the day and tablet use spiked at night. Just as people listen to the radio in their car and watch TV when they come home in the evening, they may use PCs more during the day, and smartphones, and then their tablets at night. The new landscape is evolving into multi-platform use for the internet.
Many marketers to be effective will have to use multi-platform marketing to reach people effectively, at different times with the right formats or to be competitive with different target audiences.
I may compare airline prices on my PC at work and then when I’m at the airport need to change my flights on the smartphone. To not waste time and do it easily at the airport the smartphone site needs to be configured appropriately. Otherwise I might use a different airline next time that has got it right.
As with any new fields, the spoils go to those who understand and claim the new territories first. The opportunities are now there for marketers for multi-platform marketing to new devices, and those who take them are likely to deliver better user experiences, conversion and get better marketing results than competitors.
One axis of the new internet marketing matrix is popular content. The other axis, I think, is shaping up to be the hardware platform people use to access it on.
Roger Parker is a director of New River Ltd, a New Zealand and Australian-based research firm.
Resources:
One advanced web-marketer I know of that can do multi-platform marketing, is Alistair Kerdar, at Aurora Design (note this is a totally unrelated company from New River Ltd, they haven’t paid or asked for us to refer them). Alistair can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Postscript, 12 October 2011.
In an interesting related peice that's just come out - have a look at what smart phones are doing to the text market. Published today by the Sydney Morning Herald, the market for sending texts (SMS), which telcos charge 25 cents each for, may disappear as smart phones are enabling free messaging.
http://www.smh.com.au/digital-life/mobiles/free-texting-could-spell-doom-for-sms-20111011-1lip1.html