Nope, You Can't Really Market to Smartphone Users Using Your Website

This is the last in the second round of mini posts on apps. Today's guest post by Aggie Villaneuva give us one more reason why relying on our Web sites to market smartphone users just doesn't work very well.   For those who need something more basic, please go back to the first round of articles in this series on apps. It begins here. Read through the five articles. Then come back here and start this round. It began four posts ago, which means you should be able to find them all on the home page of this blog. (-:

Internet Sites Impossible to Read & Navigate With Smartphones

by Aggie Villanueva

This introduction repeats information on why it is imperative to have your own app. Just in case you don't plan to go back to see the other articles in this series--which you really should do! (-:

The iTunes Store (for iPhones) and Apps Marketplace (Androids & compatible) is mostly ignored by authors. This is a mistake. It’s a market of billions of users who probably won’t ever see your website/blog even though their smartphones are capable of internet browsing. (Why they won’t see your site is explained in-depth in another post of this series.)

Smartphone users browsed over 97 million apps (in 2011), up from 37 million the year before. And on February 24, 2012 the iTunes App Store announced it was about to hit 25 billion downloads.

That’s how fast it’s growing, and it’s growing at this rate because businesses have discovered there is money in being represented in this vital market. Today there are literally trillions of apps downloaded weekly.

As with Mother Nature, it’s not NICE to ignore such vast opportunity.

But understandably businesses/authors can’t even consider entering the mobile marketplace with their own app until they grasp where and what that is -- until they get some answers. Each post in this series addresses a different set of question and aspects of mobile marketing with your own app.

Internet Sites Impossible to Read & Navigate With Smartphones

If you don’t have one, borrow someone’s smartphone and use it to go to your internet site or any favorite site. You’ll see you have to stretch the page to make it large enough to read the text. This will give you a tiny cut-out section of the page. In order to read you must scroll to the right and read what shows, then scroll to the right again and read, and then scroll to the right…ad nauseam.

And when you’ve finished that left to right section you must scroll down, adjusting until it goes only to the next sentence after the one you just read and repeat the process again and again and again.

And THEN you must scroll up and down and left and right to find the menu to click and go to another page. Not to mention the pains taken in order to find your sidebar with all its vital information and links. It’s frustrating and so time consuming no smartphone user will bother.

If you have any further questions about why your should have an app to market your book or how they work, please check out the remaining articles in this series. There was one every day for the last five days. The introductory first round of articles begins here. or leave your question in the comment section below. I’d love to hear your thoughts. And, yes. I'll answer your questions. So keep coming back

Learn more about Aggie Villanueva and her company check out this page or read on for one her many services--including help with apps.

More about Aggie's Services:

True, there are cheap do-it-yourself-type apps available online, but they begin and end with the entry level app you purchased and a few add-ons. But they can’t take full advantage of smartphone functionality like the Location Based Search (mentioneded in the marketing techniques articles earlier in this series) or most other marketing campaigns

To do it right, your app must be programmed specifically for your needs. This from-scratch-programming is the most desirable, but where the high costs could come in.

But it doesn’t have to be expensive-- offering you competitive prices for an entry level app is what my company, My Book Marketing Systems, is all about. Imagine your own app for just a few hundred dollars.

Even more importantly, we differ in that our apps can be upgraded a la carte to your heart’s desire and as you can afford it, all the way to our high-end super interactive stand-alone e-reader. Having a stand-alone built-in e-reader in your app is extremely desirable. (That desirability is beyond the information addressed here, but will be covered in-depth in an upcoming article of this series).

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson, author of This Is the Place; Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered; Tracings, a chapbook of poetry; and how to books for writers including the award-winning second ediction of, The Frugal Book Promoter: How to get nearly free publicity on your own or by partnering with your publisher; The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success; and Great Little Last Minute Editing Tips for Writers . The Great First Impression Book Proposal is her newest booklet for writers. She has three FRUGAL books for retailers including A Retailer’s Guide to Frugal In-Store Promotions: How To Increase Profits and Spit in the Eyes of Economic Downturns with Thrifty Events and Sales Techniques. Some of her other blogs are TheNewBookReview.blogspot.com, a blog where authors can recycle their favorite reviews. She also blogs at all things editing, grammar, formatting and more at The Frugal, Smart and Tuned-In Editor . If your followers at Twitter would benefit from this blog post, please use the little Green widget to let them know about this blog: