I was asked this question last week and while I had a quick answer off the cuff, I wanted to sit on it a bit and consider whether that was the right answer or not. Certainly, having a web presence makes sense, but does that necessarly mean a mobile website for your church, or to just be easily found if someone is using their mobile device?
Why You Would Have A Mobile Website
Clearly, having a mobile website makes sense if you are (a) a missions organization and you want the widest exposure to your vision and resources, or (b) a faith community that locally serves a significant population of those persons who are likely to be using mobile devices to find you, or find out more about you. These are just two examples, but clearly reasons for being available in a format on a mobile device, with your message specifically geared to the means and attention span of that context.
Why You Would Have a Mobile Application
Another prevailing opinion is that it might serve your ministry better to have a mobile application. Discovery is usually the reason for doing this, but I’d like to propose that you would think better. Applications should not just be reformatted websites, they should utilize the capacities of the mobile device, and offer something that a mobile website, or even your full website and marketing strategies, cannot offer.
A good case for having a mobile application for a ministry is when you produce several types of content which are better served locally instead of being streamed. Youth, sports, and even elderly organizations could also look at creating a suite of games or puzzles which better articulate their lessons and engagement strategies. An application, in a sense, is a place to experiment with the kinds of engagement that can’t happen otherwise.
Why You Wouldn’t Have a Mobile Website or App
There are a few reasons not to have a mobile website or application, and ironically, these actually tend to be sensible reasons. If you don’t have the resources to create and maintain your current website, then probably having a mobile website isn’t the right idea (yet). If you do have a solid plan for creating and/or maintaining your current website, then look at the logs (analytics) to see how many persons are coming to your site via a mobile device. Note where they are coming to. If you can create a mobile website that capitalizes on that, then go for it. If not. Don’t hurt yourself.
If your primary concern is just being findable in a search from a mobile device, then (first) make sure that your current website has the times, location, and main contact information in an easily seen place on your website. Mobile devices load slower, and have smaller screens, this info needs to therefore be one of the first items loaded. Second, you want to make sure that your entries in search engines such as Google Maps/Local are up to date.
If your primary means of engaging your community happens on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, spend your energies making sure that your profiles for social networking services are updated and clean. These services are already mobile friendly.
We talked about this from a mobile app standpoint in a previous article.
Context Matters for This Question
So, as you can see. Its not a simple “yes” or “no” kind of answer. These days, you need to balance the resources you have, versus the realities of the audiences you want to go for.
If you do decide that you need to go with a mobile website or application, look into services such as urmobile, Mobify, ShoutEm, or Ovi Publish to get up to speed faster using your existing web assets.
Remember also that mobile isn’t your laptop. Just because you have a library of sermons, and directories to every person who ever set foot in your church, doesn’t mean that this is what people want to see on their mobile’s much smaller screen. Give the information that’s most important, and then direct them quickly to the person, group, or resource that’s better able to help them fit their needs.
Keeping with yesterday’s meme about SMS (text messaging), we want to highlight some confirmed information care of Tomi Ahonen and his consulting services. I’ll let the work speak for itself:
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Two Looks at the Context/Term ‘Advanced Mobile’
Friday, January 6th, 2012Tomi Ahonen’s Ranking of Most Advanced Mobile Markets (by Country)
Tomi Ahonen (by virtue of his consultancy) tends to have all kinds of information which offer some measure of contextual relevance towards understanding mobile perspectices and trends. One of those that tends to cause all kinds of neat conversation has to do with his ranking of countries towards how advanced they are. He’s done this tanking for a few years (within his publications) and now offers this ranking again. Its not the most perfect (see the methodology quoted after the numbers, but should offer clear enough reasoning why approaching mobile from a “let’s evangelize the whole world at once approach” isn’t the best strategy.
Here’s his ranking (reformatted in a cleaner table layout):
*Emphasis ours
Read the rest of Tomi’s 2011 Mobile Phone Index Ranking posting.
Flurry’s Analysis of the Installed Base of Users for iOS and Android Devices
One of the most popular (and heard) metrics for ascertaining the relevance of mobile is to take a look at sales and activations numbers. And certainly these do have some redeeming value when looking at the “right now” action that is happening with mobile. However, concentrating on sales and activations misses the most signifiant statistic – how many devices are being used right now? And if there is only a percentage of those total sales or activations being used, what others kinds of information does this installed base give us that might better allow us to see the actual use of mobile, and the opportunities which might lie for mobile/mobile ministry endeavors?
The largest take on installed base research that I’ve seen to date seems to be this work compiled and recently published by Flurry.
Flurry validates their research by using several data points, most of which are available publically, and then cross-linking that against their metrics gained from the 140,000 applications which utilize their analytics software/services. Here’s a snippet of their report:
Read the entire iOS/Android Installed Base report from Flurry
Takeaways/Conclusions
We titled this post Two Looks at the Context/Term ‘Advanced Mobile’ because the phrase finds itself often within conversations about mobile/mobile ministry. Being advanced is indeed one part functionality (Ahonen) and another part current/analyized use (Flurry). Aiming devices, services, and experiences to a mobile goal means that you have to keep in mind not just the trends (Ahonen) but also what’s happening that’s addressable. Aiming for smartphone users in the US makes sense because of the shape and prospects of the market. Using the same approach in Angola might not be a good bet. The context of what’s advanced mobility there or elsewhere has to seen in light of what’s actually happening.
Given the information above, shaping your mobile strategy for 2012 and beyond should be a good bit clearer.
Tags: Android, countries, Flurry, installed base, iOS, metrics, mobile in analytics, Mobile in Analytics/Marketing/Development, mobility, stats, tech, Tomi Ahonen
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