Bearwood Lakes Golf Club made a great leap forward, when they launched their mobile optimized website in last April.
Some of you might ask why am I so excited about Bearwood Lakes Golf Club mobile website. In my previous post I wrote about the importance of mobile applications based on the findings of Flurry. In this April I had to be quite optimistic about marketers' and golf clubs' understanding of mobile marketing.
Then came as a cold shower the findings of Adobe 2013 Digital Marketing Optimization Survey. Adobe found that only 27% of the companies have mobile optimized website. If I have to prioritize mobile marketing duties in light of budget constraints, then I would put on the top of my list: mobile optimized website (although I know how it is far more comfortable to use a mobile application instead of typing a URL in the browser).
Without dedicating too much time to smartphone and tablet penetration in the UK it is worth to know that 9.8 million UK consumers used a tablet device to access the web in 2012, representing growth of 140% over 2011. At the same time 58 percent of the population in the UK owning a smartphone in 2012.
I think it was a Google survey in the US, where smartphone users were asked. Here are some of the conclusions that worth to consider:
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Mobile sites lead to mobile purchases. This finding is pretty logical and no-brainer: Shoppers are more likely to buy a product or service if your site is optimized for mobile.
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If your site isn't optimized for mobile, shoppers will go elsewhere. We have very limited time and we want easy to use and digestable solutions. Every moment matters. If they will not be satisfied what you are providing they will go to your competitors. Can you afford this?
- A bad mobile experience can damage a company's brand. A bad mobile experience can create bad feelings about your company. I think it is more than a marketing mantra of our days that we have to come up with positive customer experience to drive more sales. So if you website on the prospects' mobile is more like a hurdle than a positive experience then you should fix it as soon as possible.
So we can say that Bearwood Lakes Golf Club made a great leap forward by acknowledging the importance of mobile in their customers' and members' life. Even their desktop website is quite good, although I would do some changes to turn it to be more user friendly and social.