Should You Primarily Target Mobile Users in Digital Marketing?

Digital marketing strategies are hard to build and even harder to grow, especially in today’s competitive age. If you want to be successful, you should focus on specific target demographics to increase your relevance and minimize competition. To this end, you might specifically prioritize mobile users.

But why is this cohort so important? And is it worth deprioritizing non-mobile users?

The Importance of Audience Targeting

As you likely know, audience targeting is incredibly important for your digital marketing strategy overall. In fact, a significant chunk of your results will depend on your ability to target the right audience and speak to them appropriately. Without a specific target demographic, your messages are going to become irrelevant, and you’ll open yourself to more competition at the same time. Conversely, if you choose an appropriate audience and you can reach them with directed, persuasive messaging, you’ll stand a much better chance of success.

Unfortunately, figuring out the right type of audience isn’t always easy. Even if your marketing department has excellent leaders, tools and resources to conduct adequate research, and a genuine desire to master the art of audience targeting, you may suffer from blind spots, biases, and limitations that prevent you from doing so.

Together with a fractional CMO, you can take a deeper dive and make sure that you’re targeting the right audience and targeting them effectively. Why hire a fractional CMO? A fractional CMO in this context works much like a consultant, bringing their experience and expertise to your organization so you can collaborate on strategies that can yield better results.

The Mobile-First Mindset

Why would you consider primarily targeting mobile users in your digital marketing strategy?

• Balance of mobile and non-mobile users. More than 60 percent of all web traffic comes from mobile devices, and that number is likely to increase in the future. When mobile devices were first released, people still primarily used their desktops and laptops for web browsing. These days, online activities are so varied, internet access is so abundant, and mobile devices are so powerful and convenient that they represent the bulk of online interactions. If forced to choose between mobile and non-mobile users, targeting mobile users would give you a bigger audience immediately.
• Potential issues with mobile devices. Designing and messaging for mobile is also advantageous because mobile devices are inherently more susceptible to issues. It’s more common for mobile users to encounter problems like content loading, readability, and page loading speed.
• Accessibility for other users. Typically, if you optimize your website, your messaging, and your ads for mobile users, they’ll naturally be optimized for other formats as well, but this isn’t necessarily true in reverse. Mobile ads look good on desktop, but desktop ads don’t always look good on mobile.
• Factors particular to your organization. There may also be some factors within your organization that make mobile users more favorable. For example, if you know that your restaurant takes reservations primarily from mobile users, focusing on those mobile users can help you see even more conversions.

The Benefits of Prioritizing Mobile Users

Generally, there are many benefits of prioritizing mobile users:

• SEO benefits. As you likely know, there are search engine optimization (SEO) benefits associated with optimizing everything for mobile users. Google and other search engines know that mobile is dominant and will likely be even more dominant in the future, so they reward websites, applications, and pages that work well for mobile users.
• Faster page loading. Mobile optimization typically results in faster page loading as well. If you design and execute with mobile users in mind, your content will load faster and much more reliably, leading to greater usability for all your users.
• Cross-device compatibility. Actions you take to make something more compatible with mobile devices are typically favorable for other devices as well. However, this trend doesn’t work in reverse. Optimizing for mobile users is a way of almost guaranteeing cross-device compatibility.
• Broader appeal. Remember that most web traffic is mobile, so all other factors being equal, targeting mobile users is going to introduce you to a bigger potential audience. A bigger audience isn’t necessarily going to lead you to better results, but it’s a nice benefit if your business doesn’t have a preference between mobile and non-mobile users otherwise.
• Immediacy and on-the-go users. Targeting mobile users also typically introduces you to users who are on the go and people looking to take immediate action. Simply shifting your digital marketing strategy to incorporate more mobile users could help boost your conversion rate because of this.

Although you still can’t afford to ignore other demographics and niches, especially if your organization depends on them, there are merits in prioritizing mobile users in your digital marketing strategy. This is likely to become even more important in the future as mobile becomes even more dominant.