Netbiscuits guest contributor Sam Morton from M2 Bespoke provides some advice to marketers on delivering content to multiple screens.
As a marketer, how do you feel about multi-screening? Maybe you see it as your main priority and are working hard to realise its full potential. Or perhaps, you see it more as an obstacle, a challenge you are not quite sure how to approach. If you fall into the latter category, you are not alone. The question of how to get across a message to an individual who is merrily watching TV, doing a spot of online shopping on their laptop, while simultaneously sending a text message can seem one challenge too far. Luckily, it is not.
It may not be apparent, but multi-screening has been around for decades. As soon as the wireless came onto the scene, people were sewing or reading whilst listening to the radio. OK, so these days sewing might have been replaced by smartphones and reading is done on a tablet rather than from a hardback book, but the principle remains. Whatever, or however many, devices are in front of us, we want them to work and deliver a seamless experience. Expectations are high, so marketers need to make sure they are delivering across multiple devices. Here are some tips to help you maximise your multi-screen effectiveness.
1. Create focused content
If you want to appeal to a user who is surrounded by potential distractions, you need your content to be short and to-the-point. Make sure your message is focused, conveyed accurately and simple to understand. Visual content is particularly important in today’s multi-screen environment, so make sure you get that just right, too. There is a proliferation of digital video out there, so make sure your business is harnessing its potential – across every screen.
2. Be search savvy
You must make sure that your website and content are easy to find across all devices. The easier your site is to find on search engines, the higher up the rankings it will appear. Remember that desktop search is very different from mobile search – do not neglect one in favour of the other.
3. Never underestimate the importance of speed
The expectations of users are increasing all the time; they want information to appear virtually instantly, whether that is on a smartphone, tablet or desktop computer. Research suggests that 40% of users abandon a website if it takes longer than three seconds to load. Of course, any business would be hard pressed to guarantee a two-second load time every time their site is accessed, but techniques such as initial page render can help get round this. Just remember, speed is king when you are entering into multi-screen combat.
4. Remember one size does not fit all
User experience should be the same across all devices. Users are happily using more than one device so make sure your brand is portrayed in the same light across them all. Screen size or format should be irrelevant, with your content and site displaying perfectly across all devices. It is naive to assume that your audience (even your existing customers) will put up with a poorly rendered site on their smartphone. They will simply get bored of waiting and move their online search elsewhere.
5. Enable movement between screens
Multi-screen marketing is a story-telling strategy that brands use to reach a wider audience, and speak to that audience on their terms. You don’t want users to read one piece of content and leave it at that. Make it easy for people to continue their reading journey from one device to the next. Allow people to save content so that they can return to it in the future on another device. A good example of this is seen in an item added to a shopping cart on a desktop, which is then available to the individual on their smartphone, at a later date. One thing to consider is that some of your content may ‘age’ at different rates depending on the device.
6. Create well-crafted emails
One of the top tasks people do in between (or rather at the same time as) other tasks is catching up on their emails. For this reason, it is important to keep email content – and subject lines in particular – focused and actionable, regardless of device.
7. Include social media in your multi-screen strategy
Also on that list of ‘things to do when you’ve got a spare few minutes in front of the TV’ is checking social media. As a result, social media needs to be device agnostic. It’s also worth bearing in mind that social media platforms are generally accessed via a smartphone or tablet.
8. Minimise keystrokes
There are a couple of golden rules for making content accessible on mobile devices. One is that users do not want to constantly re-arrange the screen size with never-ending pinching and zooming. The other is that users do not really want to have to type on their smartphones or tablets. Clearly, by definition, smartphone users are inclined to make calls, so providing them with click-to-call buttons makes absolute sense. Extend this approach to streamline all user actions so all they need to do is click to view maps, send emails or access calendars, too. Perhaps, just keep this simple mantra front of mind when dealing with mobile devices: Don’t make me type!
The post Top tips for delivering content to multiple screens appeared first on .