Struggling to optimize for mobile? Here’s how to dial up your efforts
Optimizing owned media channels for mobile can be the difference between failure and success when consumers expect a zero-friction experience. As part of our deep dive into all things Mobile, Mathieu Champigny, chief executive officer of CX studio network CoCreativ, explains more.
I’ve been lucky enough to be involved in creative content production for over 20 years. In that time, I’ve witnessed a lot of drastic shifts in how we create content. Photographers moved from film to digital. Retouching was joined by CGI and 3D. But in some ways our worldwide shift to ‘mobile-first’ life has had the biggest impact on how creators and brands make all the content we see.
As mobile-first became the norm in software and website development, so did the ’mobile optimized’ approach for most brand content. This means that when planning brand digital content production, agencies and brands are now ideating with the experience of the consumer on their mobile device in mind. Optimizing the mobile experience drives the creative direction and the content all consumers are going to see.
This optimization will become increasingly important for e-commerce players as consumers continue to become more comfortable with making purchases on their phone. No brand can risk having their purchase pipeline disrupted because of poor mobile engagement, especially with younger generations of consumers. You don’t want the video that you were heavily invested in creating in order to drive purchases at your fashion brand to be the cause of turning off consumers because their viewing experience was so frustrating.
The question becomes: what must happen when optimizing content to ensure maximum engagement for an audience on the move? Some best practices we’ve established include:
Content creators must also be content strategists. In 2021, it is hard to create content without knowing the analytics around a brand’s existing content. Content creators hoping to optimize new content for a brand must first do a detailed audit of the brand’s existing content. What social content is the most popular? Where do consumers spend the most time on a website? What are the demographics of the consumers watching the videos? What type of content is trending?
Be flexible on the length and pace of the videos. We live in an exciting time for creatives, when consumers are willing to watch a video of any length, from three seconds to 20 minutes, as long as it is engaging. But try not to forget during the ideation process that the mobile engagement requires a different length and pace. Your heartfelt 15-minute short film might be great for the consumer to watch on their laptop or TV, but they might not have the patience or bandwidth for it on their mobile device. The ’which type of digital content and where to serve it’ question becomes crucial here.
Make image size and compression of the photographs part of the creative ideation. Image size optimization is pretty basic, but you need to consider compression when imagining how the consumer might engage with your content. When was the last time you looked at your loading time on your website’s mobile experience? We often see that for some of the biggest commercial websites out there, the loading time has not been considered or optimized for years. While load time might not be the sexiest topic around content, it is definitely one of the most important considerations to ensure engagement and conversion.
Embrace UX. To build on the idea of considering the load time, you need to consider the mobile UX experience overall. Not all phones are as fast as computers and if you pick the wrong format with the wrong loading time you have stumbled upon the fastest way to alienate the consumer. We are generally more patient and willing to give content a minute to load when comfortably seated at the computer or watching TV. And we generally experience stronger, faster internet service on a laptop than on a mobile device. Those considerations must be as much a part of the creative process of a piece of content as casting, sound design or production value.
The content creators and creatives must consider the ways that technology impacts the user experience and affects the mobile UX experience, and must optimize the mobile experience accordingly. These are the creators who will win the important battle for e-commerce success and brand loyalty.