If you are reading this you probably already know that at the most basic level, channels bring products and services (or content) to your customers. They're all about convenience and efficiency. Communications and computing products also double as digital channels. A means for us to conveniently and efficiently find, browse, consume and share information and content.
Steve Smith writes one of those articles that will make you forever think differently about interactive channels. Between the lines of the Mobile Insider article, Mobile Is the Web We Really Always Wanted All Along you'll find a good dose of common sense marketing. Common sense that has been beat out of most of us in pursuit of all things digital. It's time to put the customer front and center in the interactive channels equation. I'm all for data and the amazing things you can do with it, but data without putting it into the context of being human, won't help you achieve your business goals.
The long and the short of Steve Smith's article is that people like to consume media and engage better with brands when they consume it "appropriately and comfortably" - in a big chair, on the beach, feet up, while killing time at the DMV or waiting at a doctors office. Well, how about a big giant, "Duh!" This human behavior hasn't changed in decades.
Common Sense
If you're like me, as much as I am attached to my computer, when I am not working, I really don't want to be attached to my desk to watch TV, catch up on reading or search for recipes. That doesn't mean I don't still want access to media and information. My butt simply cannot tolerate any more office chair time and I need to be closer to friends or family - or just get some energy from a bunch of strangers at the coffee house or farmer's market. Even when I am working, I still look forward to plane rides where I grab my paper magazines and pen and start ripping out pages and writing notes for later action. Why? Because I can engage and consume on my terms. Appropriate tools for appropriate use models.
Comfort
I don't anyone who enjoys pleasure reading at a 90 degree angle - do you? A tablet or pad, e-reader, smartphone and PNDs all give us comfortable access to digital content on our sofas, in our cars, at the pool and in the sports bleachers. They are personal devices and comfortably go with us anywhere. A computer is a work appliance. Doing research at a desktop, with a full keyboard and big screen and lots of pictures and videos is an awesome thing. I can write notes, cut and paste notes into documents and integrate and interact with lots of things all at once. But we are human and crave diversity and mobility. Just because we want to be plugged into the the Matrix 24/7 doesn't mean we want to be tethered to the comm port and stuck in our cubicle pods in the fetal position. We were born for mobility.
Somehow, in all the digital innovation madness, we've forgotten the basic tenants of why channels exist - to reach our customers - wherever they may be. While I love my electric purple office chair, it is not where I consume all of my digital content. And somewhere I remember hearing that farmers - out in their fields and on their tractors - are some of the biggest consumers of mobile digital content in the US. Weather and soil conditions are dynamic - as are the people who consume those services and the commodity markets that affect them.
When you take into account who your customers are, where they are, and from what device they prefer (or need) to consume your digital content, you can't miss on the basics of your digital channel strategy.
