Millennials are hard to pry away from their phones, which makes mobile-optimized content all the more important.
ET might not have known how to phone home but Millennials – people who reached adulthood around the year 2000 – are surely at home on their smartphones. They are much more likely to seek out information on their phones than on laptops or tablets. You see them in doorways, eyes riveted to their screens or in a crowded café, groups together and yet each alone as he or she trolls the web.
Among the general population, time spent on mobile devices has exploded – around 90% of the population owns a mobile phone. But with Millennials it is essentially ubiquitous. They are virtually married to their smartphones, with 87% admitting they are hand-in-hand with these devices all the time.
Remember, it’s a small world
Fact is, web-browsing on the go is not the same as luxuriating in front of a comparatively theater-like desktop screen or even a 6- or 7-inch tablet. Keep in mind, however, smartphones are not some shrunken, tag-along kid brother wiping his nose with his sleeve.
Browsing on these smartphones, which Millennials do in their sleep, is a narrow viewing experience. But Millennials will tell you that many current websites just aren’t up to snuff when it comes to such mobile functionality – 86% say that many websites still are not mobile optimized. This means that reaching this group requires more responsiveness.
Simple does it
You may need to distill content down and simplify your website to attract these phone-huggers. This means using larger font sizes that won’t force Millennials to tax their still-keen eyesight on these small screens and having more streamlined, easier-to-read page designs.
Keep the number of pages on your site to a minimum since smartphone browsers can load more slowly than those on a computer, which may wear on a Millennials’ tender patience.
In addition, on these small screens white space is your friend. You may want to get across as much of your message as possible, but remember even lithe Millennials whose fingers fly as they text, need enough room to click the right button. Also, help a Millennial out with things like dropdown menus, prepopulated fields and checklists that may require only a tap or two on the screen to find what they’re after. You’ll minimize smartphone typing aggravation that even adept Millennials can experience.
If you do this, before you know it Millennials, just like ET, will be ready to give you a call.
