About a month ago at the SuperComm Digital Media Forum I spoke at I learned an interesting fact from the folks over at Tagga (who sell a simple, beautiful mobile platform to agencies like Evo):
People who lose their wallet report it missing within 26 hours. People who lose their mobile report it within 68 minutes.1
That's a powerful fact for marketers who are faced with a budget and what seems like a million different avenues to pursue. It seems pretty clear that the fastest, most accurate way to reach your customer is through a device that they can't live over an hour without.
Yes, the future has come and now we're deeply in it. Facebook is the new brand website. Twitter is the new press release. And the mobile phone is the new PC. You can get and do everything you need in one small handheld device that you don't even have to pull out of its case to run through the scanner at the airport. Social networking, gaming, email, texting, instant messaging, life planning, organizing, browsing... mobile's got it all.
Need more facts?
+ App phone users spend, on average, 2 hours a day using their phones.2
+ In 2010 there will be 3 times as many mobiles as PCs.3
+ Mobile is used by every generation from the millenials to the old boomers.4
+ From 2008 to 2009 the number of people who accessed news and info daily on their mobile phones doubled to 22.4 million with 9.3 milion social networking mobile users.5
+ U.S. advertisers are projected to spend $229 million on mobile media this year, up 26% from $169 million in 2008.6
+ There are now nearly 300 million mobile subscribers in North America.7
It truly is the era of NOW. You can reach your customer NOW. Your customer can find a cheaper product and purchase it NOW. And your customer can fall in love with your brand NOW. It's clear to us that our clients have a unique opportunity right now to show how truly innovative and smart they are by investing in mobile.
Don't believe us yet? Take it from the company that redefined advertising the first time and is doing it again: Volkswagen. They just announced that they will be the first company to launch their new model solely to iphone users. Read the article here: Volkswagen First To Launch New Model Solely Via iPhone Application (And Some PR)
So, Evo's advice right now to our clients: Keep twittering, facebooking and blogging. Just do it from your phone. There are lots of apps out there to help you. Get in touch (pun intended) with your mobile and start thinking about how to target your customers on their devices. And as always, we're here to help.
1 Unisys (2003)
2 Gravitytank (2009)
3 eForecasts (2009)
4 The Mobile Advertising Report (2008)
5 comScore (2009)
6 Magna (2009)
7 CTIA- The Wireless Association (2009)