This is a first in a series of blogs that will discuss how to use mobile technology to promote your business. However, before I can really proceed, I first need to discuss what the impact the smart phone has on our society. My contention is that the population has already adopted mobile.
I recently gave a presentation on this subject and I asked the audience what they did with their smart phone. In the short 5 minute exercise, this is what we came up with:
GPS: since this person’s iPhone begin to provide turn by turn directions, they no longer used their Garmin.
Watch: this person uses his smart phone to tell time and no longer wears a watch. One person mentioned that he also used it as an alarm clock.
Comparison shopping / scanning bar codes: One person admitted that they used their phone when shopping and scans the bar code of a desired item. It typically came up with a list of sites that offered the item for less. More often than not, he would show the item to the sales clerk and they would match it.
Camera/Video Camera: interestingly enough the smartphone has devastated the point and click camera market
MP3/Video/Streaming Media Player: people used it to play music and video both resident on the smartphone or streaming like from Pandora or Netflix.
Social Media: Many of the mentioned they accessed their social media from their Smart Phone
Internet / Internet Search: One person mentioned that the smart phone became the ultimate arbiter of disputes
Email: Most of the people accessed their email accounts from their smart phone.
Texting: This was universal
Games: This person admitted that he was addicted to Star Wars Angry Bird.
Pedometer: One person was trying to lose weight and downloaded a pedometer app. He used it to track his walking and weight.
Apps: The pedometer brought up the subject of apps and the countless possibilities. Other apps mentioned were calculators and tracking expenses.
Phone: Close to the end of this exercise, we were reminded that smartphones could also be used as phones.
I had to stop the exercise after 5 minutes but it proved my point. The smart phone has become key to our lives and clearly the group I talked to heavily used their smartphone.
Wireless Subscriptions Overtake Populations
To reinforce my contention, an interesting statistic is that the number of cell phones in the U.S. actually outnumber the population.
Hopefully, with your own experience you can accept my premise that the population has adopted mobile. What’s interesting, is that most business, organizations, government agencies have yet to adopt a mobile strategy. Many that have already done so have seen a good ROI. In my next blog, I will discuss the three pillars of developing a mobile strategy.
Cheers,
Rich Foreman
