IAAPA recently polled about 125 FEC’s of all sizes, mostly from the U.S.A. asking what percentage of their online traffic came from a mobile device, including tablets. The number averaged around 40%! Two years ago, according to the State of the Industry report done by IAAPA, the number was under 15%.
Mobile websites are essential and should be a priority for FEC’s. Here are Your Perceptions suggestions for how to begin:
- Make sure you have Google Analytics installed on your website. It’s free, easy and essential.
- Look in those analytics under the category Audience, then under Overview. Next, choose ‘Mobile’ then “Overview’. Make sure you put in a range of dates in the top right next to Audience Overview, especially if Analytics was previously installed. Divide the number of tablet and mobile users by the total number of visitors to your website and you will have a percentage of mobile users. If it is over 15% of traffic, you could at least double it with a mobile responsive website. Even without a mobile design, the 15% tells you people are trying to see your site on a mobile device and the experience is not good.
- Put your website address into your phone or tablet’s browser. See how it looks to visitors. Can you find what you want easily? Is the type size hard to read? If you updated your site recently, are the changes there? If the answer is no, take the next step.
- Take a look at some examples of the way mobile responsive sites ‘should’ look. You can put in the website address for any competitor and see how their site looks, but for this article, take a look at some that Your Perceptions has done:
– www.fiestavillage.com – a medium sized amusement park in California
– www.wondermountainfunpark.com – a small FEC in Maine
– www.valleycenterbowl .com – a medium sized bowling center in California
– www.laserfuncenter.com – a medium sized laser tag facility in Colorado
Each of these websites is 100% compatible with the main website and POS, if applicable. When changes are made to the website, they update on a mobile device automatically. Visitors can buy tickets and season passes, reserve parties and get the latest information updated from the main website easily and quickly.All of these sites also show over 50% of their traffic coming on mobile devices and climbing!Although the design of the page you land on with your mobile device may be different then your main site, it contains the same branding and the same content. It is however, displayed differently to navigate easily on a tablet or mobile device.
Each of the main things visitors want to access on a mobile device are there. Visitors save time and come back frequently to their mobile device, especially the younger demographic who live on their smart phones. It matches a primary demographic for most FEC’s so it makes sense.
Contact Jim Zigarelli at Your Perceptions at 303-579-2025 or [email protected] and mention the Redemption and FEC Report and receive a complimentary review of your current mobile application to see if and how they can improve it.
Your Perceptions, an internet marketing company based in Colorado, specializes in creating mobile responsive websites for FEC’s. They have mobile clients in each of the primary fields of the FEC industry: Entertainment Centers, Small to Medium Amusement Parks, Laser Tag and Bowling Centers.
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