10 Hot Mobile Trends for 2016

By 2020, the number of devices connected to the Internet is expected to exceed 40 billion. Now this is a enormous number that could well be exploited by both existing businesses and start-ups to come with innovative ideas to reach out and sell products and services to their customers. . More and more buying decisions are happening via mobile devices, particularly in the B2B space, and companies across all industries need to adapt, or they will get left behind. Let’s now look at some of the key trends in mobility that are expected to give a leg-up to SMEs in their pursuit of business excellence:

Mobile payments: Expected to boost trade in small commodities and services

The mobile, internet, DTH and taxi bills are just the tip of the iceberg as to the areas where such platforms can be utilised. Imagine the convenience associated with not having to carry cash or credit cards in addition to your smartphone, which acts the the only conduit for petty payments on a day-to-day basis. Soon, more merchants shall be willing to accept mobile payments as it also saves them the hassles of dealing with and transporting bundles of cash.

Mobile platforms shall spur On Demand Services

New supply will stimulate new demand. Mobile platforms combined with geo location tech will continue to bring everyday people and businesses together to interact with trust. New technologies shall make even renting products and services as simple as they made buying them a decade ago.

Mobile marketing: Mass personalization of ads

New adtech companies will focus on targeted advertising and dish out relevant ads based on users’ interest through different mobile apps and platforms. All this made possible through optimized mobile affiliate tracking capabilities. Ad publishers will offer in-house capabilities for behaviorally programmatic targeting of premium advertising. Mobile-savvy users have become accustomed to increasingly personalized, valuable messaging, and they’ll continue to expect it. With a wealth of customer data available, marketing automation gives marketers the chance to make that data actionable, and deliver that personalization at scale. With the help of mobile automation platforms, they’ll use algorithms o determine the optimal time to interact with users, and then deliver push notifications, emails, and in-app messages at those peak engagement times.

Video ads on mobile devices

With increased internet penetration, better bandwidths and more feature-rich mobile phones, video ads on social media and mobile apps will become more prevalent. Google will incorporate video ads in search results, making sponsored results more eye-catching and compelling, while Facebook is opening up its in-feed, auto-play video spots to apps within its Audience Network, so users logged into Facebook will see those ads in other apps as well. Twitter is also getting in on the video game, as McDonald’s demonstrated recently when it announced its all-day breakfast menu using a variety of GIFs in tweets.

Mobile only internet users surpass desktop only users

People are already spending at least 54 percent of their digital media time interacting with mobile apps. Business owners shall soon realise that their customers are literally living, working, and exploring on mobile, and in the process, giving marketers an unprecedented opportunity to learn and start a dialogue about products and experiences that could be meaningful to them. Mobile marketing space shall work to build and enhance this two-way relationship, to make the process of discovery and outreach far more relevant and personalized, and to provide customers with branded experiences that actually enhance their lives.

Also, by using mobile solutions with easy-to-use CRM, client engagement and back-end business management capabilities, today’s busy small business personnel will be able to manage all key aspects of their business via their mobile device, whether at the office, in the field or after hours.

Businesses to build on their mobile presence

In 2015, Google introduced a new algorithm update that has begun to severely damage the rankings of sites not optimised for mobile. As over a quarter of people in the world use smartphones, and many young people, in particular, won’t do business with a company that doesn’t have a mobile site or app. In 2014, 42% of the businesses didn’t use mobile responsive websites but now businesses are beginning to catch up and enhancing mobile presence shall be a key area of focus in 2016.

In 2016, small businesses will have to dedicate more time and resources to build mobile into their marketing and branding. Google has new mobile optimisation guidelines, which means not having a website with a responsive mobile design can hurt a site’s ranking on SEO, especially when someone is searching from a mobile device. Another new trend for 2016 will be to have even faster page-load times, which Google is calling the project Accelerated Mobile Pages, or AMP HTML

Google’s app indexing will enhance business-friendly apps

Google has offered app indexing for a while, but as the ranking possibilities for apps become more complex, 2016 will be the year more business owners realize the online visibility advantages of a dedicated app. While, a mobile-optimized site appeals to the mobile crowd, apps will soon begin to replace them. Apps can do everything that websites can, and in even better and more innovative ways. We could still be several years away from the day when apps completely replace websites as a medium, but 2016 will be a pivotal year in app adoption from a business owner’s perspective.

Mobile will completely dominate desktop

In 2015 Google announced that mobile traffic finally overtook desktop traffic in 10 different countries. They also released the “Mobilegeddon” algorithm update the same year to phase out sites not optimized for mobile. But apparently, you don’t have to have an optimized desktop site in addition to a mobile version as according to Google, a mobile-only site with no desktop counterpart works just fine. While this alone won’t drive down desktop traffic, but this makes it clear what Google’s priorities are going forward. So, as desktop traffic fades away, the smart money rests on mobile-focused online marketing.

Mobile beacons will he hot

For small businesses with a physical store, location marketing is going to be a game changer through beacons for 2016. Facebook is already rolling out their Bluetooth beacons to businesses to shoot out promotional messages and alerts to fans when they’re within close proximity of a store, serving a dual-purpose of next-level customer service and real-time mobile marketing. However, a user would need to have location services and Bluetooth connectivity switched on within their mobile devices to receive such messages.

Millennials drive a mobile mentality for small businesses

The increasing influence of the millennial generation, which prefers quick, immediate interactions via mobile devices, is expected to significantly impact the way small businesses approach customer engagement in 2016. Service businesses in particular must be able to effectively cater to this mobile customer or risk losing the important repeat business they need to keep their organisation afloat.