I bought my first tablet, an iPad first generation on the first day the iPad 2 was released. The $100 drop in price was too tempting and I justified selling a few silver coins I inherited from my dad to pay for it because this was going to be a great investment for my job. It is now two years later and I feel it was one of the best consumer electronic investments I have ever made. I do use it in my professional life, but I use it more in my personal life. In fact once the rest of the family started using it, it was no longer mine and became family property. The daily schedule got to the point that I knew when I got home that my mother-in-law was going to use it for two hours to play her Slotomania. After her time was up, my five year old daughter ask for it so she play her Easy-Bake oven app until it was close to bed time. My wife would use it here and there, but she was the first to get a smartphone so when my daughter would go to bed I would finally get my time to play Angry Birds. This past Christmas my mother-in-law got her own tablet and when my daughter turned six earlier this year we gave her a tablet designed specifically for children. My iPad was finally all mine again.
Our family is just one example that supports the report that was just released by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project which revealed that 34% of American adults own a tablet. In two years our household went from 0 to 3 and even my mom and her husband bought an iPad 2 in that time. It is becoming very apparent that all the early predictions that the tablet will replace the laptop are not only coming true, it is happening much faster than previously thought. Most consumers don’t need much more computing power than something to edit pictures, watch videos, update their social media and play games. When you combine something that can do all of that, is smaller than a Dr. Seuss book and it takes HD pictures and videos while allowing you to store everything in the cloud you have the recipe for the end of laptops computing.
When it comes to business, your company in particular the tablet holds incredible significance. There are many ways you can incorporate a tablet as a working tool. We have some clients that use it for sales presentations, portable POS systems and administrative units. What is more important though is how your website is viewed on your customers and potential customer’s tablets. Most companies have been slow to adapt a responsive design to their websites which will end up costing them money, possibly quite a bit in the short run. In the long run it will be crippling.
If your website has a responsive design it means that it has been programmed to reconfigure itself based on the mobile device viewing it. There is no enlarging the screen with two fingers or moving the page to the left and right so you can read a complete sentence. It means when your customer or potential customer visits your site, all the navigation is laid out right before them in simple, easy-to-see and understand navigation. It is getting to the point that if a potential customer visits your website and it is small and hard to see when they reach the page, they are already so tired of hassling with sites just like yours that they will simply move on. Are you not the same way?
I am going to give you another advantage of having a responsive design. Are you a business owner who would like to have an app to offer your customers for their mobile device, but you know you can’t afford the thousands of dollars it would cost to produce it? First you should take the price you think it will cost and triple it because when you create a mobile app, it has to be programmed for each mobile operating system. If you created an app for the iPad or iPhone, it will not work on an Android or Windows system. Here is the good news. Most companies would only require a simple app anyway with basic tools for the consumer. You can do this for a much lower cost by utilizing a responsive design for your website. That way you can provide the function and tools your customer might need and it will work on all three operating systems. You just saved your company thousands of dollars!
One third of our country’s adults own a tablet and over half own a smartphone. While most of the country is like my family and use them for entertainment purposes, it is becoming their primary way of finding things they want to spend their money on. It is the same for business professionals. If you are ready to work with a company who specializes in responsive designs, finds gratification through helping clients increase their bottom line and enjoys communicating with clients as often as they need then you should give us a call.
Impact Media works with companies all over southeastern North Carolina and the upper South Carolina region including Brunswick, New Hanover, Pender, Bladen, Onslow, Raleigh and Myrtle Beach. Our clients include Coldwell Banker SeaCoast Realty, Fine Coastal Living, Atlantic Metal Roofing, The Wilmington Arts Council, Alpha Mortgage, Southern Home Builders, CDB Corp. and over two hundred more companies who are local and global leaders in their industries. We are also more than happy to provide you with references upon request. Give us a call today at 910-679-4471 and schedule a free assessment consultation. We will listen to your internet marketing needs, help you determine if your website can integrate a responsive design so you do not need an entire new one and present you with options to help meet your goals and increase your leads. Now back to your tablet and that game of Words with Friends you started two weeks ago!
