What are the best ways to use mobile and emerging technologies to drive digital strategy and growth?

In my experience understanding your audience goes beyond just demographics and usage patterns. It involves diving deep into their emotional triggers and motivations. To gain a unique perspective, I consider employing empathy mapping techniques. This involves creating detailed personas that not only describe audience's characteristics but also their aspirations, fears, and pain points.

You’ve got to get into the headspace of your audience, feel their pulse, know their pain like you wrote the lyrics to their life’s blues song. That’s how you make sure what you’re bringing to the table isn’t just flashy but damn useful. Use all the tools at your disposal, no cap. Analytics will show you the ‘what,’ but those surveys and interviews? Those give you the ‘why.’ That’s like the secret sauce, man. You find out why they do what they do, and you’ve unlocked the cheat code to serving them better. And once you understand your people, you tailor that experience like a custom Versace suit. When you do that, it’s not just user-friendly; it’s user-fanatic. Your audience won’t just like your app; they’ll live it.

Nothing beats actual dialogue with the prospective or existing audiences. There are many cost effective methods of user studies to apply to digital strategy planning. An insightful way is a diary method where users are given a task to keep an online log of the ways how they interact with your brand. This can open new perspectives into what technology your users prefer and for what purposes.

From a UI/UX standpoint - Think about "thumb-friendly" design. Most mobile users navigate with one hand and primarily use their thumb for interactions. To optimize for this, position crucial elements and buttons within the thumb's natural reach. This ensures a smoother and more ergonomic user experience.

In my experience it is eye-opening to check the mobile experience first; naturally by using a mobile device, but also utilizing developer tools and views on desktop in order to simulate mobile browsing experience. You soon notice how small the screen real estate is and how this forces you to carefully think what to include and how to support smooth navigating and e.g. sales.

More than a single KPI you should be focusing on the top revenue generating user paths which usually happen across several device types or technologies. Each technology play a part in the play and it is this interplay that makes analysis of the performance both very challenging and interesting at the same time.