Goodbye television viewing – Hello mobile content marketing!
Are you scratching your head wondering what you missed?
Maybe you were too busy binge watching the latest offering on Netflix.
Don’t worry–I get the guilty pleasure of being a couch-potato.
But in 2018, Americans will consume 215 minutes per day (or roughly 3½ hours) of mobile content, a mere 15 minutes less than what they watch on television. (Source: eMarketer)
Television VS Mobile Time Spent in Minutes – Chart via eMarketer 2018
Is your content marketing ready for this shift?
Or, do you feel smug because you’re a B2B marketer?
Don’t be–this news also applies to you!
Fear not–we’ve got you covered (Don’t we always?) with data on 3 emerging television-viewing habits you can use to improve your mobile content marketing. (BTW, here’s how we consume content now.)
Mobile Usage: What You Need To Know Now
While marketers use a variety of digital media options, mobile dominates digital usage. Specifically, adult mobile usage consumes 3.3 hours out of 5.9 hours each day (Source: Mary Meeker.)
Daily hours spent with digital media per adult user – 2018 Chart
Time Spent With Non-Voice Media on Mobile (US) via Stasticia
Further, in the US, 60% of connected device usage is smartphones, 30% is desktop computers, and 10% is tablets (Source: comScore.)
People Use Different Connected Devices By Country- Chart via comScore
Mobile apps dominate over mobile browsers. In the US, mobile app usage accounts for 88% of mobile usage (comScore, 2018.) While mobile app usage grew 6% on average in 2017, shopping apps grew a whopping 54%! (Source: Flurry.)
Mobile App Growth by Category – Chart via Flurry
Further, entertainment, social media, messaging and gaming dominate app usage (Source: comScore.)
Which Mobile Apps People Use By Country – Chart by comScore
Here’s what this means for your mobile content marketing:
Tap into other people’s audiences to get access to established app audiences.
Additionally mobile is where most people view videos including chat (Source: eMarketer.)
- 38 billion streamed or downloaded videos worldwide by the end of 2018.
- 4% of digital video is viewed on a mobile phone and 2/3 of video views take place on YouTube.
- Chat app usage drives video streaming use and will account for 55% of streamed video by the end of 2018.
Here’s what this means for your mobile content marketing:
Understand how, where and when your audience uses their smartphones. Context matters!
Further, smartphone usage encompasses other forms of content including:
- Voice search.
- News consumption. 85% of Americans get their news on a mobile device (Source: Pew Internet, 2017.)
Americans use their smartphones to get the news – Chart via Pew Internet
- Book reading. While 67% of Americans prefer to read print books, tastes in book reading continue to evolve. Currently, 26% of respondents read ebooks, 18% listen to audio books, and 7% read only digital books. (Source: Pew Internet)
Print books still matter in the US–Almost 1 in 5 reads an ebook – Chart via Pew Research
Use TV Viewing Habits To Boost Your Mobile Content Marketing
Despite declining tv viewing, television content consumption habits have changed.
In part this is attributable to television often being bundled with Internet services. As a result, 70% of viewers don’t see its value (Source: Deloitte, 2018.)
Don’t worry—This is good news for your mobile content marketing:
Increased quality video content consumption has moved from TVs to smartphones.
How television viewers feel about streaming content services – Chart via Deloitte
3 Emerging TV Viewing Habits To Integrate Into Your Mobile Content
3 Emerging TV Habits To Integrate Into Your Mobile Content Marketing -Graphic via HeidiCohen.com
1. Consumers seek and pay for streaming content subscriptions.
High quality original content drives streaming video consumption. In 2017, 55% of US households subscribed to streaming services generating $2.1 billion in revenues. On average each household bought 3 services. Of the 38 hours per week of video watched, 15 hours were streamed (Source: Deloitte, 2018.)
2. Consumers binge on streamed content.
While the number of OTT (aka: over-the-top) plans increased in 2017, viewers sought long format content such as television shows and movies. On average, they binged on 7+ episodes at a time and often view it on a mobile device.
3. Consumers want video content on their terms.
They want to view it when, where and how they want. Further, they want to be able to watch it across multiple devices without ads.
3 Mobile Content Marketing Strategies To Improve Your Results
Mobile first is no longer nice-to-have. Rather it’s a must-have or a good portion of your target audience may miss your message.
This includes B2B marketers where capturing audience attention is complicated by the fact that your audience may have more than one smartphone or do their online searching outside of office hours and equipment!
As a result, your website, blog, email and other content must render well on a smartphone.
This has 3 implications for your mobile content marketing.
3 Mobile Content Marketing Strategies – Graphic via HeidiCohen.com
1. Be easy-to-find on a smartphone
You can’t assume that your audience will proactively seek your information when they reach for their smartphone.
Smartphone screens are crowded. Further many people organize their mobile screens by function or, worse, they have no organization!
Instead tap into the power of existing smartphone entryways. Your options include:
- Social media
- Messaging apps (like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger)
- Other top apps beyond email, social media and messaging
- Mobile search. In addition to a separate mobile search budget, use search-like sites such as Yelp and TripAdvisor. Also consider voice search!
- Mobile website. Optimize it for the activities on-the-go.
- Video—especially YouTube.
- E-readers. For longer content this includes Kindle and iBooks.
- iTunes and mobile audio gateways for podcasts and audio books.
- Advertising including search, social media and other apps.
Actionable Mobile Content Marketing Tips:
- Understand your audience’s smartphone usage and content preferences. Include this information in your marketing personas.
- Use multiple content formats. Offer text, visuals, video and audio to satisfy different audience preferences and expand your audience.
- Diversify your content distribution across smartphone options. Your objective is to increase findability and visibility.
2. Make content easy-to-consume on a mobile device
Bear in mind that smartphones are generally personal devices that may be used concurrently with other connected devices or during otherwise content-free time.
As a result, your content must standout in the mobile context in which it appears. To this end, attention-getting visuals and strong, mobile optimized headlines help.
Offer 4 types of content to meet smartphone content consumption habits-Visual via HeidiCohen.com
This means you must plan for 4 key types of mobile content consumption:
- Provide short check-in information. Let your audience catch up on the latest news via newsfeeds, social media and/or text messages.
- Optimize email for smartphones. Email-on-the-go is a good way for people to plow through their overstuffed inboxes. Therefore make your emailings easy to respond to using your subject line and sender ID or risk being deleted without being read.
- Offer on-the-go content. Allow your audience to read or listen to your content while doing something else like commuting, driving or working. Include longer form information and downloads, books (via Kindle or iBooks), video, and audio content (such as podcasts and audio books).
- Include time waster content. While this may be what your audience actively seeks, it doesn’t work for every business. It includes social media, funny videos and games.
Actionable Mobile Content Marketing Tips:
- Offer audience different content serving sizes. Let your readers decide the amount of content they want as well as when, where and how they want to consume it.
- Create short, teaser content. Your objective is to stand out and be noticed in your audience’s feeds. Allow readers to save content for later use (such as Pocket) or to share it.
- Use multiple content formats. Offer text, visuals, video and audio to satisfy different audience preferences as well as to consume in different environments.
3. Make mobile content easy-to-act-on
Easy-to-act-on mobile content removes friction that prevents readers from taking the next step.
5 Calls-to-Action for Mobile Content Marketing-Visual via HeidiCohen.com
Use these 5 calls-to-action to keep readers engaged with your business:
- Continue reading. Like Netflix, hand-select and offer related articles.
- Capture reader email address to maintain communications. Keep signup simple and minimize your information requests.
- Communicate with you. Include a variety of options such as text, chat, email, voice and in-person.
- Purchase. Allow readers to buy straight from your content.
- Share message. Facilitate reader’s ability to share your content.
Actionable Mobile Content Marketing Tips:
- Always include a contextually relevant call-to-action.
- Make every piece of content an entryway to building a deeper relationship, regardless of platform or format.
- Use trackable landing pages. Focus options on the next contextually relevant action and make it easy for people with big fingers to use.
Boost Mobile Content Marketing Conclusion
The time has come to be mobile first to serve your maximum potential audience. You can no longer hope that winging it or your desktop content will provide a satisfactory mobile experience.
While consumers have changed their television content consumption habits, they’re watching less of it on big screen TVs.
Profit from these emerging television content consumption habits. They’re proven.
And, even better for you, they’re moving to smartphone’s small screen.
Build these 3 television-based habits into your mobile content marketing.
What are you waiting for?
Happy Marketing,
Heidi Cohen
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Photo Credit: https://unsplash.com/photos/PpYOQgsZDM4 cc zero