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You’ve probably noticed that we’ve been talking a lot about mobile marketing recently. There’s a reason for that: mobile Internet use is exploding. We’ve put together this Mobile Infographic that helps to put it into perspective. Take a look!
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At around this time last year, I speculated whether the tablet PC would ultimately replace the smartphone. It has yet to happen. Sure, a tablet can do everything a smartphone can, but most people own a smartphone because it is a phone. Calls on a tablet are however possible, yet the tablet has primarily been positioned as a companion device to the smartphone and as an alternative to the laptop. That may not be a bad place to be.
What are consumers doing with their smartphones and tablets?
17% of smartphone owners in the United States also have a tablet. The most important difference between the two devices is where people are using them.
Smartphones stay with people wherever they go. They are used for keeping up with social network sites, email and the news. They also act as GPS navigators, music players, cameras, camcorders and of course, phones. Smartphones enhance many on-the-go activities.
Tablets, on the other hand, are primarily used at home. They are not as portable as smartphones and are considered too large to hold up to one’s ear to make phone calls. The tablet is the preferred device at home though because of its bigger screen size compared to the smartphone and because of its greater portability compared to the laptop. They are well-suited for surfing the web or watching movies while relaxing on the couch.
Is there a shift occurring in the world of mobile devices?
Maybe. One of the latest innovations is the phablet, a new class of devices that has cellular connectivity and voice calling capabilities. With a screen size of 5 inches to 7 inches, the phablet is too big to be a phone and too small to be a tablet. A couple of examples are the Samsung Galaxy Note and the LG Optimus Vu.
As an unproven form factor, there is as much support for them as there is skepticism against them. However, sales figures from the last three months suggest that there is a market of consumers who don’t want to carry around a phone and a tablet but require the functionality of both.
What does this mean for a marketer in 2012 and beyond?
Phablets are not expected to be common-place for at least another year. However, smartphones and tablets are here, so I offer the following suggestions:
How is marketing to smartphone or tablet users working for you? Please share your insights with us. here
What’s the most important goal for any small business? Sustained growth in clients and numbers. What’s the best way to achieve this? Never stop prospecting!
For many small businesses starting out, growing their client base is crucial, but when their client list and numbers start to grow, they often let prospecting fall to the wayside. Prospecting is important, because it keeps your business in front of your potential clients and “keeps your funnel full,” as our company President would say. Keeping your marketing funnel full means putting new prospects in, gaining new business, and filtering out ones that would not be compatible clients.
Prospecting is essentially a numbers game. Timing and luck play into this as well. All of that aside, you as a business developer can still do many things to get your business name out there and build your client base.
When it comes to prospecting, a consistent and diligent plan to stay in front of your contacts is very important. Keep at it. You may make one hundred calls in a week, and only one may actually pay off, but keep in mind, there is huge success in numbers!
Do you know how many Facebook users there are today and how that number can affect communication with your target audience?
Facebook recently reported that over 500 million of their 900 million users log in to their account each day; again that was 500 million people log in every day! Have you thought about using Facebook advertising to reach your target audience? You should. There is a huge opportunity for marketers to integrate Facebook advertising into their current marketing program.
Give it a look or ask us to take a look at it. You may want to give it a try!
Downtown St. Louis Missouri was a hopping place this past weekend, hosting a St. Louis Cardinals baseball game, a St. Louis Blues Hockey game and the largest consumer-centered shooting sports show in the country - the NRA Annual Meeting and Exhibits. But if visitors thought coming inside the America’s Center would help them avoid the crowd, they were sadly mistaken. From the opening bell at 9am on Friday, April 13th, shoulder to shoulder crowds filled the exhibition floor as the 2012 session of the NRA Annual Meeting began.
In January, shooting sports manufacturers were able to showcase new products and services to dealers from all over the world at the 2012 SHOT Show. Although these buyers made product selections that could make or break any new or existing product, the real test came at the NRA show when the consumer could kick the tires and place his or her stamp of approval on what could be the best selling products on the dealers’ shelves for the upcoming season.
With over 70,000 forecasted to attend the 2012 NRA show, manufacturers were able to get products in front of a very passionate and serious focus group of hunters and shooters. Their opinions really matter, and the smart manufacturers were at the show listening.
While visiting displays from all the major shooting sports manufacturers was probably the top agenda item for most attendees, there was also a political agenda that NRA officials wanted to express to NRA members. With a presidential election coming in the fall, NRA members are viewed as a crucial group to influence and all of the Republican presidential candidates were there to gain support. While shooting sports dealers know the importance of appealing to the NRA member for their businesses success, political candidates also know approval from the NRA can swing a lot of votes in November.
At the end of the NRA show, those attending were shown lots of new product innovations and heard lots of political commentary. How this focus group decides to vote in these two arenas could show up in product sales at the end of the year and election results in November. It’s going to be an exciting year.
Ideas come to me all the time. I immediately strike some down as bad, while others take a while (and maybe input from others) to be culled out. Only a small fraction of those ideas ever survive the cut. I assume the same holds true for you. What happens to those you don’t pursue? A chance stumbling across a piece of my past made me take a new look at the value of those thoughts.
Seventeen years ago today, Spring Internet World ‘95 marked the commercial Internet’s coming out party, where the business world took charge. With over 27,000 attendees and 192 companies exhibiting, the event (at four times the previous year’s size) foreshadowed the Internet’s explosive growth.
A few weeks ago, I found presentations from Spring Internet World ‘95, and spent some time with them, reminiscing a bit about that particularly exciting time in my career. One presentation caught my attention: Neil Randall’s “The Business of the Internet: Should Businesses Care About the World Wide Web?” Neil asked “Can you sell enough things and are people going to buy the things over the Web that you have to offer?” Looking back, it may seem a silly question, but in 1995, it was to the point.
During his talk, Neil tossed out several examples of products that you shouldn’t bother trying to sell on the Internet. I’m sure the audience fully agreed. Some of those examples:
He said to be sure to focus on the types of products and services that people were “willing to buy, to engage in, to indulge in over the Web”. That message was 100% spot-on. And in 1995, the market wasn’t there for the products in those examples.
Yet you could build a highly successful business model around each of those categories now. Not only could you - it’s already been done.
These seemingly bad ideas weren’t so bad after all; they were great ideas whose time hadn’t come. The same thing happens on a smaller scale here at Callis and in my home life. I regularly dismiss ideas based on the current reality.
I intend to make a conscious effort to archive some of the ideas that didn’t work so that I’ve got them to look back on in the future. My goal isn’t to hang on to bad ideas, but to allow an opportunity for an idea to meet its perfect time. Which of your recently-thrown out ideas will deserve a second look in the future? How will you keep track of them so you’ll have that chance?
For the year 2012, I chose Collaborate, Upgrade and Streamline as my focus words to guide my professional and my personal life. The first two have to do with my natural tendencies while the last one is more about implementing what I have learned from the first two activities.
For as long as I can remember, I can spend hours and hours engaging in solitary activities like reading, writing, drawing and daydreaming. In fact, while writing this blog, I am sitting here thinking about my favorite spot for “hiding out” in my backyard when I was ten years old. It was there where I read so many books and even wrote alternative versions of my favorite stories. Cut to 2012, and I see that my hideout has been upgraded to my office at Callis & Associates. For this reason, I chose Collaborate. Collaboration offers several opportunities to learn from others. It also gives me a chance to let others learn from me.
All that reading has naturally led to a love for learning. If it’s challenging, fun, or interesting, it’s probably on my list of things to master, or at least attempt to do so. The following is a sample of what I have pursued in more recent years: web design, C++, teaching and laying out my own patio. In other words, I want to perform activities described by my second word, Upgrade. Upgrading is about seeking out new techniques, skills and knowledge and perhaps zeroing in on those that can benefit our clients and my family. I am sure that my wife wouldn’t mind if the next skill I wanted to learn has something to do with home improvement.
My third word is Streamline. My goal from collaboration and upgrading is to be able to streamline my activities. The main activities involved with streamlining are simplifying or eliminating unnecessary steps and applying more modern or efficient approaches. A sure way to be able to achieve greater efficiency and effectiveness is to take the time to learn from others and from my own experiences.
Quick quiz: Are there more toothbrushes or cell phones in the world today? Pretty simple, right? (Wrong. Cell phones win.)
The rapid advance of smart phones, cellular bandwidth, and growth in number of users is changing the world as we speak. Today, more phones and tablets are sold than desktop and notebook PCs. We’re in the post-PC era. The change isn’t coming - it’s here… and it’s not done yet.
The statistics for mobile phones in the USA are impressive:
… and some of our Callis & Associates clients are generating nearly 20% of their web traffic from mobile devices. In short, it’s a new mobile world.
The opportunities are impressive, but there are challenges as well. The first challenge is to reformat your website message for the shapes and sizes of these new mobile screens. What does your website look like on a smartphone? If you haven’t done this, you really should. What you see might shock you. If the text is too small to read, buttons and text are hard to select, you have to go side to side, or there are broken elements, now is the time to start developing your optimized, user-friendly mobile website!
Recently, I read a quote by Michael Porter who said, “Competitive strategy is about being different. It means deliberately choosing a different set of activities to deliver a unique mix of value.” I couldn’t agree more, but determining your competitive advantage can be challenging to do.
Here are some questions you might ask yourself or your marketing team to help you zero in on your competitive advantage.
Once you answer these questions, you can begin to identify the advantage you have and how you’re going to exploit it and communicate it. It can be a challenging process to go through, but also very insightful and rewarding.
Are there other questions you can think of that could help you?
In art, balance is defined as the harmony of design and proportion. As an artist, I apply this basic art principle on a daily basis. However, I’ve found that applying the principle of balance to life is more challenging.
We all struggle with juggling work, family and recreation, so I know I’m not alone in this quest for balance. So, to help strike a balance in my life, I’ve chosen three words to become my focus for the year: organized, proactive and healthy.
Most people who know me think I’m organized. If given multiple tasks I usually am able to manage priorities to meet deadlines. So, choosing this word as a focus for the year may come as a surprise to some. But what most people don’t realize is that I’m much less organized than I used to be. In college I handled the hectic schedule by making very strict “to do” lists. These lists defined my day minute by minute:
1:00 - 1:30 Study Spanish
1:30 - 4:00 Drawing III Class
4:00 - 5:00 Read English Lit assignment
5:00 - 5:30 Dinner
5:30 - 6:30 Time with boyfriend
6:30 - 9:00 Package Design project
9:00 - 10:30 Study Art History
As you can see by this snippet, it was a little rigid. And, as you may have guessed, “boyfriend” did not like being “scheduled.” So, I’ve lightened up over the years.
But being organized is not optional in my job or as a busy wife and mother. I must strive to find a balance between flexibility and organization in my life.
Proactive makes the list because it facilitates being organized. It’s much easier to control a situation by causing something to happen rather than responding to something that’s already happened. By being proactive I can analyze and prioritize my to do list and ensure nothing falls between the cracks.
My last word, healthy, is the most important to me. No riches on this earth are as valuable as good health. And, by good health, I mean more than just physical wellness. Health is much more than a physical state. It, too, is a fine balance between physical, emotional and spiritual well-being.
Like the majority of Americans, I struggle to eat right and exercise. But this important combination does more than keep my body healthy. It also helps my mind by alleviating stress. And, with a deadline-driven job and the demands of a busy life at home, diminishing stress is a top priority.
The final piece that must fit into place in order for me to have a healthy lifestyle is the nourishment of my spiritual life. I’ve been blessed to have a loving upbringing that has given me a strong foundation of faith. I rely upon my faith on a daily basis to see me through whatever life brings. It’s an integral part of who I am that I cannot afford to take for granted, so I must be diligent to keep my eyes focused on the prize.
Yes, life is all about balance. As I strive this year to strike a balance, my wish for you is that you find yours as well.
