Having spent time as a Rogers mobile phone representative as well as other Telecom provider solutions from other companies, I found out first hand what people are willing to do and pay for in order to to get “in-the-moment” satisfaction for their dollar.

smart-i-phones Being what I describe as in the “I want it now” mindset, the vast majority of people don’t want to or can’t wait to get home or back to the office in order to access things like email, browse internet or download music.

What is vast becoming the cell phone of choice is the "smart phone". Some examples of Smart Phones include BlackBerry, the iPhones, Treo and a host of other phones laced with 3G functionality and super fast browsing.  These phones are usually bigger in size, and give more functional choices like typing in Word documents, calendars, to-do’s, etc.  They are designed to allow better media access like internet and email. A major tie-in is that they are associated with data packages.

Data packages represent an amount of download and/or browse-ability measured in megabytes or percentages of megabytes. Kb size becomes very important to measure because the cost per download becomes relevant to the type of download you are doing. Anyone working with larger file sizes would be better served to download from their computer because of the potential cost factor.

Back in 2006, when buying a data package along with wireless service cost an outrageous $25 per half megabyte, I couldn’t believe that people were willing to pay it…but they did, and continue to do today.

Some SMART PHONE numbers to digest

Keep in mind that these would be 2006-2007 figures.

I was signing monthly packages for data to the tune of 5-7/week. If my weekly sales totaled between 15 to 25, then potentially 30% of my customers were buying data along with their cell phone plans.

The $25 package was purchased about half the time with the $40 plan about 25%, $60 plan at 20% and the $100 plan about 5% of the time. Our customer base tended to do business at our downtown location in the biggest city in Canada and largest region including Toronto.

I’m not sure what the numbers would be in smaller cities, but the big city mindset (as convenient as things tend to be for Torontonians) told me that people here wanted even more. With the cheaper plans that are available now, the demand has increased to the point where many more people want it who really don’t need it. It is kind of an ‘ipod’ mentality. It is meant to be easy to use and be right at your fingertips.

What environment does this mindset create?

It allows the user to feel entitled to get information immediately anytime at their fingertips. If they don’t get what they want within seconds of punching keys, they somehow feel letdown by either the service or the websites that they are accessing.

When people know they’ve got a text message, they take a quick peek and then deal with it either by answering back or filing it in their memory. Knowing that this is how people function with their cell phones, this will go across platforms to how they expect to be treated and to find other information.

There are two ways to look at the information provided by a website on a smart phone and/or a regular cell phone:

1. Because of the size of the screen and limited way in which the user can push buttons, the less searching a user has to do, the better. Even some of the largest screens are still limited on visual access to information. Apple’s solution on their iPhone is to allow finger scrolling while other phones still have to do button scrolling.

2. No matter what cell phone you use, you cannot inundate the user with content or a story. There is no time. Because people live in sound bites, they have no patience to sift through content click after click or scroll after scroll. They are hoping to find certain trigger words that speak to their unspoken question or query when they access a website.

3. Very clear Calls to Action, the shorter the better. Trigger words from key words they are hoping to find created to answer their search and supporting links are the best ways to get Smart Phone users to go deeper into your sales funnel that you have created specifically for visitor conversion.

If you can picture yourself trying to search a website from your BlackBerry, you will get an understanding that the less cumbersome it is for them to go from point A to point B, you will develop ways to get to the point and answer their questions quicker or at least lead them to find the answer for themselves quicker.

4. This means larger type that is easier to see and stand out with. No script fonts or fonts that are difficult to read. A headline in Red will stand out the best and copy that is no more that 10 to 40 words per paragraph will complete quick thought patterns and themed links that will keep the user engaged and digest the information they can handle both visually and mentally.

What does this mean to the internet marketing industry?

We have a whole new market to consider when developing a site!

  • Text needs to become more point form based
  • Navigation needs to be perfectly laid out
  • Each page should have direction to the end goal

I have no doubt in my mind that Smart Phones are going to redefine how we use the internet.  Coming very soon will be the fact that people access the internet more on phones then they do on computers.  In short, computers are now in peoples pockets.  People can now seek out information on a whim.

Ever wonder how much more important internet marketing and your business can be?

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