Is your firm, product and/or brand findable when your target audience looks for it on a smartphone, tablet or other mobile device?
If you’re not sure of the answer to this question then you have work to do. Since today’s customers, especially millennials, want information when they’re seeking it, in the form they want and via the device they’re using at the time.
For consumers, information is no longer, one device fits all, especially for digital content formats.
2014 Mobile data
To get your 2014 marketing aligned with your market’s information consumption habits and needs, here is 2014 mobile data. (For a point of comparison, here’s our last 2013 mobile data roundup.)
148 million Americans age 13 and older own smartphones and 72 million own tabletsbased on data from comScore. 
Smartphones have 65% penetration in the US and still growing according to comScore.
In terms of operating systems, Android was the the top US smartphone platform with 51.7% market share and Apple was the second largest US smartphone platform with 41.6% market share according to comScore. 
Multi-screen: Mobile device usage keeps on growing
Global consumers use a diverse mix of digital devices. While PCs remain dominant, mobile usage to connect with the Internet grew to 65% in 2013 from 55% in 2011 and tablet usage grew even faster to 29% in 2013 from 12% in 2011. Here’s how devices rank visually.
59% of US consumers connect to the Internet via a mobile device. 
54% of US audiences are multi-platform (both mobile and desktop) while only 6% of US audiences are mobile only according to comScore. Therefore think multi-platform dominant.
Mobile is 2014′s media cannibalizer. (Here’s a full analysis of how Americans spend their time with media.)
US adults are shifting their time spent with major media and devices towards mobile. Given that the mobile penetration rate in the US has passed 50%, this growth has slowed. Of interest is the high growth of mobile video time followed by social media.
85% of global Internet users have multi-screened (or used another device) while watching television. To put this in perspective, television viewers have used television as a background for other activities such as telephone calls and reading for years.
- 54% of global Internet users view their mobiles while watching tv.
- 24% of global Internet users are tablet second-screeners.
Mobile usage
Time spent on a mobile device by the average US consumer increased to 2 hrs and 42 minutes per day according to Flurry. (BTW–Mobile is where you’ll find millennials.)
- Mobile apps accounted for 86% of the average US mobile consumer’s time, or 2 hrs and 19 minutes per day. (BTW–Here are 21 tips to promote your mobile app.)
- Mobile web declined to 14% of the US mobile consumer’s time or 22 minutes per day.
Take a deeper look at how we spend our time on connected devices broken out by apps and browsers. Google, Apple and Facebook stand out.
When it comes to mobile media, Google is the top web property on smartphones, reaching 89.4% of the mobile media audience (mobile browsing and app usage) closely followed by Facebook with 86.6% of the mobile media audience, and Yahoo Sites with 86.2% of the mobile media audience as measured by comScore.
Mobile use grew 115% in 2013 according to Flurry.
- Mobile messaging and social media grew 203%. This is attributable to the high visibility of messaging apps like WhatsApp, WeChat, KakaoTalk, LINE, Facebook Messenger and SnapChat. This category’s rate of growth tripled usage year-over-year, outpacing other popular categories.
- Mobile utilities and productivity tools (like Evernote and Quip0 grew 149%attributable to smartphones and tablets being used as computers.
- Mobile apps usage grew 115%.
Mobile only audience
Marketers and publishers need to assess mobile usage by platform and media entity since mobile-only audiences may account for the majority of the audience. This matters for Apple, Pandora and Buzzfeed.
Mobile addicts
- A typical consumer launches apps about 10 times per day on average.
- The super user category of people who launch apps 16 to 60 times per day grew 55% growth and regular users grew 23%.
- A mobile addict launches apps more than 60 times per day. The mobile addict segment grew 123% to 176 million users in March 2014.
Middle-aged consumers are 28% of mobile addicts and 20% of average mobile consumers.
Mobile addicts were 52% female and 48% male while average mobile users were 48% female and 52% male. There are 15 million more female mobile addicts than male mobile addicts.
In terms of the mobile marketing persona, female mobile addicts tend to be mothers, parents, gamers, and sports fans. By contrast, the males mobile addicts tend to be car fans, parents, gamers, and catalog shopper. 
Mobile search
Based on Local Corporation and the e-tailing group research, you need to include mobile search in your marketing plans.
- 50% of smartphone owners surveyed believe search result listings influence their purchase decisions.
- 31% of smartphone owners surveyed believe that mobile results with local availability influence their purchase decisions.
Mobile email
Want to build your mobile marketing list? Then make your prospects an offer they can’t refuse according to November 2013 Responsys mobile research.
59% of US mobile device users will sign up to receive special offers and promotions. Further, 50% of US mobile users are enticed by sales.
Understand that signing up to receive your marketing and promotional messages is only the first step along the mobile purchase process. You need to motivate your audience to buy. Hands down,two-thirds of respondents are actively seeking lower prices in the form of special deals.
Mobile email makes the business world go round.
- 51% of worldwide email opens occur on a mobile device based on research by ReturnPath.
- Almost 75% of smartphone users both check work and personal email on their phone according to July 2013 Deloitte research. Further, about half of those surveyed check email via a tablet.
- Mobile email delivers $7.14 in mobile email revenues per click versus $3.26 in desktop email revenues per click based on Yesmail research.
Format your email marketing for smartphone and tablet consumption. Don’t assume that the email that you’ve been sending will render in an easy-to-consume way on a mobile device. Test your email across a variety of handsets and devices. Mobile email is a marketing must-have not a luxury.
Mobile advertising
Global mobile advertising spend increased 105.0% to a total of $17.96 billion in 2013, based on eMarketer analysis. 2014 mobile advertising is expected to grow another 75.1%to $31.45 billion, almost a quarter of total digital advertising spend worldwide. 
While the increase in mobile advertising spend is dramatic during this high growth phase, a deeper look at the data reveals that Google and Facebook experienced net mobile ad revenues increase by $6.92 billion. This was 75.2% of the incremental $9.2 billion of mobile ad spend in 2013. These 2 firms are consolidating their places at the top of the mobile ad market.
Mobile advertising is cheap relative to other media formats, especially print (newspapers and magazines.
Mobile advertising costs $0.07 per hour spent with media per US adult in 2014, up slightly from 2013. It trails online advertising and is 1/12 the cost of print advertising based on hour spent with media per US adult.
Mobile purchase process
74% of global Internet users search for products or services to buy online. 34% of global Internet users do their searching via a mobile device, up from 30% in 2012.To appreciate this growth, this mobile audience grew from roughly 480 million people to almost 615 million people in one year. 
PCs remain the preferred purchase device with 61% of global Internet users buying via a PC in the last month. Yet, mobile buying continues to increase; 27% of global Internet users purchase via their mobile and 12% of global Internet users purchasing via a tablet.
Additionally customers are using multiple devices for commerce. 27% of global Internet users employ than one device to shop online.
Mobile music
Mobile devices are for listening to music. 60.4% of respondents listened to music on their smartphone and 8.2% listened to music on their tablet according to AYTM Market Research.
But only 27.6 % of these music listeners are willing to pay for their music.
Mobile gaming
Both smartphones and tablets are used as gaming devices. About half of US smartphone gamers do so to relieve stress and another third do so to fill time. Most of these gamers spend less than a half hour a day on games.
To reach your target market, you must put your content and communications where your audience spends their time.
Based on 2014 mobile data this means mobile – both smartphones and tablets.
Further your content must provide a seamless multi-channel experience. This is particularly important for millennials.
Additionally don’t forget to make it easy for mobile users to purchase once they’ve made their minds up.
