If you’re going to the trouble of getting an app developed or even setting up a mobile version of your website, make sure copywriting is part of your planning process. If you have friends that are always late, a mobile phone has been your saviour more than once. But as we know too well, people do more with their mobile than pass the time in a pub or restaurant. You need to understand who they are and what they do and how you can adjust your content to connect with them.
Who are you trying to connect with? Is it the bored barfly looking to entertain acquaintances with Google-acquired-knowledge? Or the Mam or Dad with five minutes to spare at the school gates looking for a restaurant to go to at the weekend? It might also be the angry commuter looking at the price of second-hand cars. They need information and they need it fast. And it’s up to you to provide it… make sure you give it to them in a way they’ll read it and take in what you’re saying or selling….
In the B2B world, it could be hard-pressed buyers doing some initial supplier searches on the way to work or even during a meeting when a new aspect of a project crops up that had not been considered before.
It’s time to think about your mobile content and how you’ll prepare it.
Before you start, remember one thing – the cut-and-paste tool can be deadly in the wrong hands. Guidelines for great mobile content are similar to those for web content but not similar enough for you to cut-and-paste large tracts of your website because that‘ll ‘do’ for the mobile. It won’t do. Folk reading your mobile content are in a different place and a different frame of mind so your approach to content must be different too.
A few things to start with
- Increase the font size up a few numbers to 13 or 14.
- No back-stories – be ruthless with your editing. You can lose the standard intros to product pages and the history lessons from your ‘about us’ page.
- Headings should be even more descriptive, clear and pun-free.
- Frontload the content – from the people who brought you ‘mission-critical’ and ‘leveraging’, ‘frontloading’ has now been acquired by us marketing types and in this context, it means making sure all the crucial information is at the top of the page and easy to see straight away. For those who think about farming or JCBs when you hear the term ‘frontloading’, you are not alone. And yes, it is an age thing.
- 100 is the new 400 – where before you felt you needed 400 words to get a point across on your website, you now have less than 100 to make the same point on mobile.
Your mobile content should be much shorter, a bit sweeter and if in doubt, think about your target audience. Consider where they might be reading your content and how you can make it easier for them. And next time you’re meeting that friend, just take your time, you don’t want to seem needy…