Fast forward to 2013. Smart phone sales outpace PCs; more Americans are checking e-mail on the go than they are at their desktop PCs.
For the wealthy, that future is already here. The rich are twice more likely than the average individual to use the “smart” part of their smart phones. 
According to the Spectrem Group, not only are the wealthy checking their e-mail while on the go, but 46% of them are checking the stock market reports, and 56% of the ultra-high-net-worth are using their smart phones to conduct some form of financial research.
Web and e-mail design capabilities have exploded alongside the popularity of mobile devices, and the ability to adapt any message or design to whichever screen it happens to be viewed on is, by now, pretty standard stuff. Yet we see all the time that the marketers to the wealthy haven’t kept up with the trend; given how rapidly the wealthy adapt to the new technology, that’s a problem that’s only going to get worse. Force your clients to access your website designed for a PC on their smart phones, and you risk contaminating your brand with bad design and user interfaces that don’t work.
Of course, for anyone contemplating a mobile user experience, many questions go unanswered. Are they reading an article while in a doctors’ waiting room, while in line at Whole Foods, or walking on the treadmill? How much information is being processed? So web marketers aren’t only competing with a crowded inbox and overabundance of available sites, but with stop-lights, theater crowds or even the dog in front of them on the sidewalk. So the chance to captivate your audience is, literally, a matter of seconds.
Marketers need to start with better optimization of their material designed for the PC screen by using responsive web design, bold colors, more room for fingers on touch screens and an abbreviated number of words. We are giving mobile user interfaces a lot of thought here at HNW. Check back soon for more best practices on mobile marketing.
In the meantime, try to get a message through to a travelling executive who is simultaneously scheduling meetings on her iPad while navigating an airport and selecting which movie to download before her flight. Impossible to get her attention? There may be an app for that.
Nicely done Lauren…