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Responsive web design: five reasons why it may not be the right answer

I generally find myself in agreement with the authors on Econsultancy, but when I read Ben Davis’ article: 10 websites that aren’t responsive (and probably should be).

I didn’t agree with this, as I think those websites aren’t responsive because they don’t need to be.

Responsive design is a wonderful tool and is a great solution for quite a lot of sites. I have used responsive design to deliver many sites, but it’s not a magic bullet that will solve all pains around mobile. 

Google click-to-call used by more than 40% of mobile searchers

Google and Ipsos have published new research intended to detail the use of click-to-call in mobile search.

The results show that almost half of those surveyed (42%) had used click-to-call in search, with the need to talk to a real person stated as the main motivation. Other motivations included ‘wanting answers more quickly’ and ‘needing more information than a website could provide’.

Of smartphone users, a massive 94% have needed to call a business directly when searching for information, whether click-to-call is available or not.

Google has a unique perspective on much of the mobile customer journey with search, Maps, Chrome, Places, click-to-call, Wallet, to name a few. 

Google ads drive 40m calls a month and with in-search features growing more on desktop and smartphone, customers are using them more and more. The research showed 47% were aware of additional information displayed in search results.

Here are some more findings from the research and an additional click-to-call case study from sk:n clinics.

For further information on this topic, check out our blog posts looking at five good and five bad examples of click-to-call mobile CTAs, or 12 useful tips for optimising mobile landing pages.

Why 2014 is crunch time for video content marketing

Last year was a remarkable one for content marketing. Come the start of this year, 93% of B2B marketers were using content marketing as part of their overall marketing strategy, and achieving some significant substantial successes.

As a result, hopes are high this year, with 90% of marketers convinced that content marketing will become more important over the next 12 months.

But the industry currently stands at a crossroads. Marketers may be increasing their spend this year, but only guarantees of concrete return-on-investment (ROI) will give brands the confidence to maintain this momentum and commit more of their precious budgets in the future.

There’s clearly a strong case for investing more in owned content strategies, but there’s never been more pressure for content to produce results.

So why has 2014 become a make-or-break period for content marketing?

The inexorable usefulness of Twitter to publishers and authors

I’m trying my best to sound literary in this post – the pseud’s headline, the confessional first line.

I was tweeted by an author this morning. The whole uplifting experience was enough to slap me in the face with the wet fish of Twitter’s usefulness to the author and publisher.

I thought suddenly, I should write this up for the blog! One of the great things about the blog is the opportunity it affords us to commit the bonne pensée to a medium slightly less fleeting than mere conversation.

The story is this: I was tweeted by an author and subsequently decided to buy her book. These things happened for a number of reasons.

I’ll detail the exchange and then discuss why this case study is symptomatic of Twitter’s use and usefulness.

Depop’s app trumps eBay with a slick combination of m-commerce and social

Depop was launched in April 2013 and has achieved 200,000 downloads from the App Store so far. 

The UK based start-up, which is difficult to describe as anything but a cross between Instagram and eBay, expertly marries mobile commerce with social networking and has many advantages over other m-commerce platforms: simple and quick selling, fluid checkout, inherent social integration and no listing fees.

According to TechCrunch, the app has been responsible for 200,000 items being sold worldwide, at a value of around €5m and as of February 2013, Depop is now available for Android users, thereby extending its reach to the dominant operating system of mobile users worldwide.

If you haven’t heard of Depop before, now is the perfect time to acquaint yourself. Here I’ll be looking at the app from a user experience point of view to see what the advantages and disadvantages are in using it. 

BBC is the most shared UK news outlet on Twitter, Mail Online is fifth

The BBC and The Guardian are the most dominant UK news outlets in terms of the number of shares on Twitter, according to new data from PeerIndex.

UK Twitter users shared just over 4.2m articles from BBC News in January 2014, which apparently resulted in more than 100bn potential impressions of BBC content to Twitter users globally.

In comparison, content from The Guardian was shared 2.4m times via Twitter while The Telegraph came in third with 913,000 shares.

The research also shows the negative impact that paywalls have on social sharing, as The New York Times is the only paid-for online publications to make the top 10. For more on The NYT’s business model, read our report on its recent native advertising trial.

Why Facebook bought WhatsApp

A lot of people wondered why Facebook paid so much money for WhatsApp.

WhatsApp is 100% social, and you don’t have companies in your phone book. Many companies and online services would love to send you messages in your WhatsApp box while it’s free messaging. But they can’t.

What if customers could drop their mobile number at any online site or mobile app via their Facebook login and stay in control over the permission they gave you as a service?

Customers can even withdraw their permission before you even send a message. This is my take on what Facebook could do.

How Walmart, Asda and The Rolling Stones use mobile push notifications

Push notifications have the potential to be a powerful tool for mobile marketers as they allow businesses to target app users with timely, relevant news and offers.

A new Mobile Maturity Report from Urban Airship indicates that they are a widely used marketing tactic, with more than half of companies with apps reporting that they use push notifications to engage their audience. 

With the exception of finance companies, 70% to 80% of companies with apps use push regularly.

However from personal experience I’ve found that very few companies make use of push messages. My phone is loaded with various apps from all the reviews I’ve written over the past few years, yet only one or two have ever sent me notifications.

I’ve previously blogged about Debenhams’ clever use of push messages, which were timed to coincide with seasonal sales or events such as Valentine’s Day or payday. These messages were enough to make me click through to the Debenhams app, even though it’s not really the sort of retailer I tend to buy from.

Here I’ll look at the push messages I’ve received from Walmart, Asda and The Rolling Stones. And for more information on mobile marketing, download Econsultancy’s Mobile Commerce Compendium.

11 ways M&S is improving the multichannel experience

I’ve written two posts already about Marks & Spencer’s new website. It’s not a love-in, in fact both posts have generated some good debate.

Should it be so editorially led? Could the navigation be slicker? Should there be a guest checkout? Despite these issues, I’m a fan of the new look and aside from the intricacies, the new site is about finally aligning the brand’s image with top quality high street fashion.

But it’s about more than just a new website, M&S is investing across the multichannel customer journey, in the knowledge that a multichannel customer can be worth four times as much as one that only shops either on- or offline.

Here are 11 ways Marks & Spencer is enriching its multichannel business, aside from its new desktop and mobile sites and revamped apps.

Seven ways for marketers to collaborate with IT for better customer experience

Customer experience management is fast becoming the core pillar of effective digital marketing and data has a critical role to play.  

However, it seems that many marketers do not have access to the data they need to improve customer experience. In our recent research, only 29% of marketers told us that they have access to any kind of data in real-time, which is essential for effective customer experience management. 

This move to data-focused strategies is changing the relationship that marketing professionals have with IT and, with IT professionals traditionally the owners of data, a much closer relationship betweenthe two looks to be essential. 

The 20 different ways of using the Twitter favourite button

What is Twitter’s favourite button for, exactly? What does it mean when somebody ‘favourites’ one of your tweets? When and why do you press the button? 

There are a variety of reasons why people choose to ‘favourite’ tweets. In fact, I’ve identified 20 different reasons for doing so. If you’re anything like me you’ll use the button in a bunch of ways. 

You can be sure that I’ve missed a few things out, so be sure to leave a comment if you use the button in yet another way.

So then, why do people press the favourite button?

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