The latest IDC report pegs Android at a worldwide smartphone OS market share of 84.7%. Marketers have naturally taken greater interest in this smartphone platform over the past few years. But most of this interest comes due to just this sole fact that Android enjoys a near dominance of the smartphone OS market. If marketers can target the Android platform, they can technically target 84% of the smartphone crowd.
But is this all? Recent studies prove that Android is a much more critical platform to marketers than what was assumed. Here are some figures:
So how exactly are marketers adapting to this new reality? For starters, here are three strategies that have either become buzzwords already or are likely to become one very soon:
Responsive Email Design: Since the iPhone launched in 2007, responsive websites have slowly and truly become the norm for businesses that see a considerable number of smartphone visitors. Despite the sheer increase in the number of marketing channels available today, the humble email is still the most reliable medium for marketing. Responsive email design has become a vital element for email marketers. Nowadays, leading email marketing services like GetResponse offer responsive email templates for mobile email clients. With Android users engaging better with emails compared to even desktop users, this has become the most essential element of any email marketing campaign. As a marketer, customizing your newsletter or email marketing campaigns for mobile devices is vital to improve your response rates and a top priority today, with the surge of mobile usage.
Android Ad Targeting: According to the latest estimates from Opera Mediaworks, Android constitutes 36% of all mobile ad impressions, which is much higher than what iOS contributes. This corroborates with independent statistics from inMobi, a Mobile advertising exchange which reported Android’s contribution to be 39% of their inventory. Given the unique challenges that developers face on the Android platform (defragmentation, multiple screen resolutions, etc.), businesses now have separate teams to focus on Android ad targeting as opposed to one single mobile advertising team even a few years back. This is an instance where the challenges posed by a platform have not diminished the interest from the marketers.
Android App Campaigns: More and more businesses have now taken to building unique mobile apps for their marketing campaigns. For instance, when Chipotle launched their hugely viral ‘Scarecrow’ campaign, they complemented the actual short film with an iPhone app and no Android variant. Despite the huge success of the app online where the YouTube video amassed 6.3 million views, the lack of an Android variant was visibly felt – with only a relatively smaller bunch of iPhone users being able to access the app. But with the share of Android among smartphone users increasing every day, it is predicted that mobile app campaigns focused on Android users would soon become the norm.
