When you’re putting together any strategy, doesn’t it make good sense to ensure that you can address the needs of the largest percentage of whatever group you plan to serve? Sounds like common sense, right?
Think about our planet. Earth is made up of 70% water and 30% land. 
If the planet represented your customer base, you’d probably not make a single decision until you considered how it would impact that majority. In every decision you try to consider how to make the largest impact with each project. It’s one of those basic common sense approaches required for any business decision.
Now consider that approximately 70% of the mobile users on the planet are using feature phones. A feature phone, is simply a mobile phone that is not a ‘smart phone.’ Not sure who came up with that one, I personally would have referred to them as ‘dumb phones,’ but I guess the makers of these devices would have likely not been too happy with that designation. It is simply terminology that separates what we all 
knew as just plain cell phones – think about the Motorola RAZR or the Nokia 1100. These are phones first, and provided additional capabilities such as built in internet browsers. These are the types of devices still in use by 70% of the world’s mobile population. And I’ve run into more than a few iPhone users who have made snide remarks about how it’s great at everything except being a phone!
Let’s take a closer look at those 30% that are on smart devices. There are many studies that identify smartphone users as some very desirable customers for many industries. Statistics on this group tends to skew towards a younger demographic with more disposable income and a higher level of expectations regarding the ways in which they can do business with the companies they choose. Clearly, we can’t really ignore this group.
So, let’s revisit the initial question. How do we implement a mobile strategy that impacts the broadest view of our customers on the devices which they use every day – regardless if it’s a smartphone or feature phone?
The answer is twofold. You can’t have a one size fits all approach to solving the issue. First, Mobile Web is by far the answer to how you can reach the broadest audience. When I say ‘mobile web’, I don’t mean simply allowing customers to hit your standard PC web site from their mobile phones. Clearly, standard PC web pages are not designed for optimal viewing on any mobile device. A well designed mobile web solution optimizes the web content for the exact device on which it’s being displayed to ensure the user an optimal web browsing experience. If you’ve ever had a non-optimized web browsing experience (and there is no doubt that you’ve had these experiences numerous times), you know how frustrating it can be just to scroll left and right and try to read text fonts which are clearly not expecting a mobile user.
I’ll address the details of a well designed mobile web approach in a future post. But briefly what it entails is some powerful technologies that recognize the device in the users hand and automatically directs an appropriate look and feel, screen sizing, fonts, etc. to that device as the page in rendered.
A mobile web experience is great on all devices, but it’s typically not as robust an experience as native client installed on a smartphone device. A well designed mobile app on a users device can enable your company to become part of the users daily world, sitting right next to the news, sports and weather that users often consume on a daily basis on their devices. Your logo as an icon on their smart devices is a daily reminder that your company is part of mobile network, and available to them 24X7 as needed.
So when you’re considering a mobile approach, consider ways to incorporate both the 70% majority and the 30% minority. These are both very important user communities. Over time, it’s likely that this statistic will continue to skew up towards the smart devices, but you don’t want to leave any of your customers, or potential customers behind.
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Tags: 2011 Trends, Budgeting for Mobile, Business Case, Business Mobility, Business Process, Customer Centric Mobility, Enterprise Mobility, Feature Phones, Human Centered Mobility, Increase Customer Satisfaction, iPhone, Matt Torgersen, Mobile Apps, Mobile Devices, Mobile planning, Mobile Web, Mobility - General, Pragmatic Mobility, Smart Phones, Strategic Mobility
