The increased demand for websites optimized for multi-screens is being driven by the rapid adoption of smartphones and tablets. Canadians in particular are global leaders, and at the end of 2012 Canada had over 62% smartphone penetration. In 2013 implementing a multi-screen strategy for your business may or may not be your top priority, but it should be.

Many companies recognize mobile is growing but they may still be grappling with how to best manage a multitude of digital channels—and mobile appears to be one more. What many companies fail to recognize is investing in a multi-screen strategy is a win-win situation that provides an opportunity for targeted marketing, innovation, engagement experiences, and it can bolster a brand.

Consider what makes some of the leading brands great–consistency across all interactions, relevancy, differentiation, and an unparalleled commitment to customer needs. Apple relentlessly focuses on the customer experience, innovation and an unmatched aesthetic beauty. Disneyworld keeps their bathrooms sparkling clean; although, they know it isn’t what people come for, it certainly contributes to the experience. Not every touch-point is a profit centre, but it is the complete experience that surprises and delights customers and gives them a reason to keep coming back.

Being mobile or multi-screen ready affects your brand because it comes down to the impression you are making with your customer. Consumers aren’t sitting around thinking about whether your site is mobile friendly, but they certainly are aware when it is not. A Google survey showed that “48% of mobile users felt if a site didn’t perform well on their smartphones it made them feel as though the company didn’t care about their business.” Moreover, “50% of those users stated that even if they liked a business, they will use them less often if the website isn’t mobile-friendly.”

A website with limited or poor functionality delivered on a tablet or smartphone, is more than likely than not frustrating your customer and slowly but surely chipping away at your brand. In addition to hampering your brand, a website not optimized for mobile screens may not make the cut when searched for by consumers. Search engines are delivering results to consumers based on the device they are using. If you haven’t optimized your organizations website for multi-screen devices you won’t even get a chance to to make an impression.

Consumers want value and relevancy and they appreciate ways in which companies are making things easier for them. If a company hits it out of the park, they’ll tell their friends….and so on and so on. So, if “68% of all searches start on a smartphone” do you want to risk making a less than stellar impression with a potential customer, or worse have them go to a competitor?

Since 67 percent of users claim they are more likely to purchase from a mobile-friendly website, companies that rely on SEO are wise to move to mobile-friendly websites, and responsive web design specifically.

But if you get it right, it can pay off in spades—some financial institutions have won over their customers simply by giving customers what they want. Mobile banking provided an on-the-go option for customers and in doing so, the banks had to streamline the design. The changes made have proven so popular that Forrester Reports predict mobile banking will displace online banking because technologies like smartphone apps let customers perform simple tasks more quickly and easily than on a desktop.

Being great on the desktop just isn’t good enough anymore. Customers want to be able to do it ‘all’ from their mobile device, and no longer are consumers enamored with the pinch and zoom feature that provided a short-term fix to ‘mobile access.’ Getting it right and implementing a multi-screen strategy is smart business—it opens avenues for ecommerce, it improves the customer experience, it can improve engagement, and in an environment where everything can be shared your brand loyalists can market for you.

Remember, a brand can compensate for a less than optimal experience for a short while, but it is not impervious for the long haul. In today’s market, the value of a brand is increasingly owned by a company’s customer. Organizations should make sure they don’t give their customers a reason to go elsewhere.

For those organizations considering a mobile strategy, or deepening their current offering, the time is now. Organizations can’t control what device people are going to use so companies need to be proactive and develop for any scenario. Smartphones and tablet adoption isn’t slowing, and Google predicts in 2013 more than half of website visits will come from mobile devices rather than desktops or laptops. Chances are your site is being viewed on a mobile device right now—the question is, what impression is your organization making?

• What is Responsive Website Design?

Responsive website design is the layout and the use of fluid grids, flexible images & media queries in order to optimize web experiences for consumers regardless of device they are using (desktops, laptops, tablets and mobile devices).

• Why Use Responsive Design?

There are a number of reasons. Some reports indicate a majority of users that have a bad mobile experience are less likely to engage with a company. Many websites report that somewhere between 20% and 25% of total traffic come from mobile devices. Responsive website design is also easier to manage when updating your website.

Oh yes – and because Google says it is important for improving organic search engine rankings through mobile devices. In fact, in the near future, Google will not show any Adwords ads on mobile devices for websites that do not have a website optimized for mobile.

• How to Approach Responsive Design

Here are the tips we provided for companies thinking about optimizing their website through responsive design initiatives:

• Focus on emphasizing key content that users search for when using mobile devices
• Use metrics to determine how content is being consumed on mobile devices
• Have all your content ready before engaging in responsive design

There are a number of examples out there, including websites that we have worked on, such as TELUS’ Corporate Social Responsibility and Machine-to-Machine websites.

Try it out for yourself. Visit one of those websites on your desktop/laptop and smartphone and notice the differences. You can even resize the browser window on your desktop/laptop and watch how content moves around.

Please contact us if you are interested in having our team present the benefits of using a Responsive Web Design approach to mobile to your organization.

We have included the entire video below for your viewing enjoyment. If you want to know more about the Creative Mornings organization, then make your way over to thier site and see how the other 42 chapters embraced the topic of Happiness.

2013/01 Joseph Wu – ADHD, depression, origami, creativity, and happiness from CreativeMornings/Vancouver on Vimeo.

POWERSHiFTER joined the sponsor family for this one day event – it makes sense for us to take part in in a day where people are encouraged to dialogue and think differently.  Today, speakers shared wisdom on everything from justice to travel to the sociology of gossip.

As part of the sponsorship, POWERSHiFTER was invited to provide attendees with “swag that was useful.” We gave these cool refillable, BPA free water bottles to attendees.  Thanks so much to the folks at TEDxVancouver for allowing POWERSHiFTER to sponsor today’s thought leaders and help us quench more than just thirsty ears with our water bottles.

TEDxVancouver did an awesome job, we had a great day and left inspired.  Can’t ask for more than that on a rainy Sunday.   Just wondering when the next one is so we can get tickets.

There was a follow up from the paper (The Province) that originally broke the story the day before. They noticed my blog post on vancitybuzz.com and thought I might want to add to the follow up. Much has surfaced since my original analysis including the fact that there  were a total of 60,000 pages of content completely rewritten, the decision by the city to re-do the design after the first agency did not deliver what was envisioned for the user interface, and many other flubs and inefficiencies.

PEAK FM Interview:

Photo credit: Kenny Matic

Depending on which marketing professionals you listen to, or what articles you read, direct email marketing is either on the decline or maintaining its impressive ROI. Despite the differing opinions, almost everyone agrees that the digital marketing tactic must evolve with the changing technology and online habits of the intended audience.

Much of the focus has been on pairing email marketing with social media. But most recently there has been an urgent need to adapt practices again, this time to meet the rapid growth of mobile users. Marketing strategies that don’t have a mobile component are less successful now and will be in the future.

Mobile use growing

We’ve already experienced declining numbers of consumers visiting web-based email sites using PCs, according to comScore. A November 2010 study also showed email engagement using desktop and laptop computers declined by nine per cent while the number of page views dropped 15 per cent. However, during the same time period daily email access using mobile devices increased 40 per cent. Further to that, comScore’s January, 2012 study estimated 90 million Americans access email through a mobile device, with 64 per cent doing so on a daily basis. With such overwhelming numbers, its obvious today’s email marketing campaigns must cater to both PC computer and mobile users. Unfortunately for many campaigns, mobile is still an afterthought, where it should be front and centre.

Old webpages not good enough

The growing number of mobile users are increasingly fickle and likely won’t engage with a website if it isn’t mobile optimized.  A 2012 survey conducted by BlueHornet, a leading email marketing service provider, found 70 per cent of consumers delete emails immediately that won’t render on a mobile device. Marketers must ask themselves, who wants to view a website if they can’t read the tiny type on their four-inch smartphone screen? To answer this, conduct your own experiment to better understand the experience of mobile users. Open your emails in the morning with a smartphone – chances are you receive three or four marketing emails each morning. When you open an email, click through the links all the way to the checkout, as if you were going to buy the product or service.

It’s likely that somewhere through the steps you came across a PC-designed webpage and the type was so small you had to zoom in to read it. For an example of how to cater to the mobile audience, have a look at the marketing emails sent out by Groupon. They’ve recognized the growing number of mobile customers and geared campaigns towards them, further proof of the importance of mobile.

Take it from Groupon

One thing Groupon and other daily deals marketers do correctly with their mobile strategy is they employ a specific mobile landing page with a prominently displayed call to action (CTA) and use large buttons, photos and type.

Some others tactics and elements that should be incorporated into a successful mobile email campaigns include:

• Design emails to be easily viewed by both desktop and mobile email consumers.
• Images should be larger and should span the full 600px
• Buttons and CTA’s should also be larger and clickable if viewed in a mobile browser.
• You can use media queries for iOS devices so that emails dynamically serve up emails optimized for each platform. Lululemon does a great job with their newsletter using this technology.
• Have a link at the top that lets users view both desktop and mobile versions on the web.
• Auto direct mobile users to mobile-optimized landing pages.

Marketers using e-commerce emails that drive users to auto-direct websites should consider using mobile e-commerce platforms such as shopify.com and mobecommerce.net to ensure the mobile user experience encourages sales.

Photo credit: Marc Flores

But in the midst of these catastrophes we learned all about the power of mobile to help those who were suffering. The American Red Cross became one of the first charities to successfully use text-to-give campaigns to raise funds for disaster relief. For Haiti, $32 million was raised and $312 million for Japan.

Mobile has far-reaching implications for all charities. And is not limited to disasters of the magnitude of Haiti and Japan. In fact, we’re seeing some charities adopt it as their main fund-raising channel to pay for homeless programs and school lunch programs.

In May I wrote an article for CharityVillage.com, a prominent website for Canadian charities, explaining the power and reach of mobile that not-for-profit organizations can harness. I also made sure to include some of the dos and don’ts for mobile campaigns.

You can read the article here.

POWERSHiFTER is 25^th on the list. “They changed the way agencies are measured this year,” said Creative Director and Founder JP Holecka. “Instead of the number of employees, they’ve measured gross billings.” POWERSHiFTER currently has just four full time and 4 part time employees but earnings approaching seven figures. The agency expanded from five employees in 2011. “We are sustaining 50 per cent year over year growth and already on track to pass our targets this year,” said JP Holecka, who founded the agency in 2001. “We are lean and mean but we can still play with the big guys.”