It fits in the palm of your hand and has more computing power than the Apollo Guidance Computer (AGC), the 70-lb. computer on board the Apollo spacecraft that went to the moon and back.
The AGC had 2.3 MHz of processing power, but the iPhone has 100,000-plus times more. The iPhone, with 4GB of RAM and 512GB of storage, has over a million times more memory and more than 7 million times more hard disk space. So, if properly equipped, your smartphone could be utilized to take you to the moon.
Neil Armstrong would have loved to have that extra processing power back in 1969. The feedback and decision-making power of today’s processors would have eased his mind. He reported that his worry meter was measuring a “one” for his moon walk, but a 13 for piloting the lunar module in the final decent to the surface. Imagine how much easier it would have been with what you carry around in your pocket and take for granted.
Smartphone Addiction
Many of us are addicted to our smartphones; they’ve become an extension of ourselves. Younger people, say 16 to 35 years of age, haven’t known what life is like without them. It’s simply a part of life. Millennials watch more videos on their smartphones than they do live TV.
Need information? Boom, here it is. “Siri, what’s the weather today?” Boom, your personal weather station answers the questions. “Hey Google, what was the final score of the 2020 Super Bowl?” Boom, your sportscaster has the answer on demand.
There are more than three times more smartphones than PCs in the world. Globally, more people own a smartphone than a toothbrush. Approximately 30% of people would dump seeing their friends in person than give up their phones. Approximately 33% of people would give up sex for a year rather than be without their phones. Phone or vacation? Approximately 45% would forego the vacation. Work six days a week? Sure, 46% would do that instead of dumping their phones. Eating out? Approximately 55% would refrain from eating out for a year than be without their phones. Are we addicted? Yup.
A Mobile World
Just over four years ago, desktop traffic on the web for the first time was surpassed by mobile traffic, and mobile devices never looked back. We live in a mobile world and need to adjust our marketing strategies accordingly. In 2019, mobile advertising represented 72% of all dollars spent on digital ads. Facebook reports that 87% of their advertising revenue comes from mobile. Approximately 68% of companies in America are now fully playing in the mobile marketing arena. When surveyed, 71% of marketers indicate that mobile marketing is instrumental to their business.
Mobile-Friendly?
Is your website mobile friendly? You can get the answer here: https://search.google.com/test/mobile-friendly. It had better be. If not, Google will penalize your ranking potential, and that spells less traffic to your website and less cars to fix. Approximately 61% of people who use their phones to search for products or services say they’re more likely to connect with a local business that’s mobile friendly. And the website had better load fast, too. Why? Because more than half of people using their phones to view a website will leave if it takes longer than three seconds to load.
According to Google, you’ll lose conversions (i.e. sales) at a rate of 12% for every single second it takes to load your website. And yet Google reports that the average mobile website takes much longer than three seconds to load. The actual average load time is 15.3 seconds. Ugh! Bring on 5G!
A full 75% of mobile phone owners will turn to mobile searches first to find what they need. And 90% of these people are not committed to any particular brand…yet. Approximately 75% of those expect immediate information to be at their fingertips. Approximately 60% of people indicate that they will not purchase from a site with poorly written verbiage or overly personalized content or content that doesn’t lend itself to an optimized experience on their phones. Mobile searches for “best” this or that, or “best auto body shop,” has grown over 80% in the past three years.
All of this means your website had better be spot on, for everything, or you will lose opportunities to fix cars. Yes, it needs to perform on a PC, and the look and feel should be similar on a mobile screen. It needs to load fast and have great calls to action at the top. How does your site measure up on a mobile device?
BSB Contributing Editor Mark Claypool has more than 30 years of experience in the fields of workforce development, apprenticeships, marketing and Web presence management with SkillsUSA, the I-CAR Education Foundation, Mentors at Work, VeriFacts Automotive and the NABC. He is the CEO of Optima Automotive (www.optimaautomotive.com), which provides website design, SEO services and social media management services.
