Author: Julie Campbell

A study has shown that 55 percent of retailers feel that smartphones are sending shoppers into stores.

A new survey conducted by RSR Research has revealed that brick and mortar retailers don’t necessarily feel that smartphones are working against them, as mobile marketing is working effectively to send foot traffic back into their shops.

This has also taken some of the edge off the threat that some have felt from e-commerce giants.

The responses to the survey showed that 55 percent of businesses feel that mobile marketing is sending more consumers into their stores in order to make purchases there, in person. At the same time, they also stated that this new advertising channel could make things more challenging for them along the way, if it is to grow into a larger part of doing business. So far, the largest challenge that it presents is actually the capability for stepping into mobile, in addition to actually wanting to boost online traffic while meeting the demands of customers that are associated with making those changes.

The survey results also pointed out that there are differing opinions on mobile marketing among businesses.

The survey pointed out that there are two different categories of businesses, which they called “laggards” and “winners”. They explained that, depending on the type of business, the companies are likely to have different priorities with regards to the use of mobile advertising. The report on the survey explained that the companies that are in the “laggards” category, half feel that not knowing the expectations of the consumer in terms of smartphone ads could be the biggest challenge. Comparatively, only 38 percent in the “winners” category felt the same way.

Moreover, among the “winners”, 44 percent were focused on engaging with different groups of consumers in order to push sales upward. Furthermore, 21 percent felt that it was possible that mobile technology could be moving too fast to keep up. Equally, among the “laggards”, 20 percent said that they wanted to engage with customer groups and 0 percent felt that tech was moving too rapidly.

Both groups of businesses felt that mobile marketing was becoming an increasingly important tool and that it would only rise in its popularity over time.

The company’s estimates have shown that tablets are becoming an important part of education.

The vice president of Hewlett Packard has recently released a statement that has shown that the use of mobile technology will be important to preparing students for life in the workplace, and he accompanied this prediction with an estimate of how much U.K. schools will be spending on this equipment.

In fact, in 2015, alone, HP has estimated that schools in the United Kingdom will spend £196 million on this tech.

According to Gus Schmedlen, the HP vice president of worldwide education, printing and personal systems, said that many schools have been adopting an attitude to “wait and see” how things go with new mobile technology devices, but they have been highly influenced by the trends being set by early adopters. Schmedlen stated that schools would be starting to make the digital leap forward.

HP feels that the time has arrived for schools to start using mobile technology as a part of overall education.

Schmedlen explained that “IT is an essential part of learning as it allows pupils to understand concepts such as the sourcing of information, skills such as coding and also prepares them for the workplace.” He went on state that “Additionally for the teacher, IT provides a value-add by attracting students’ attention as well as motivating, enhancing and complementing learning.”

HP feels that the use of mobile tech is going to change the way students receive their educations, saying that ongoing assessment of the use of various types of devices is going to play a vital role in moving ahead.

The statement released by Schmedlen expressed that using technology for formative assessment can give teachers feedback in real time (or close to real time), so that interventions and adaptations in the teaching strategy can be put into place in a timely manner, instead of having to wait until the end of a term or a lesson, when final testing and overall scores are tallied.

The idea is that mobile technology can allow the right actions to be taken throughout the learning process, instead of waiting until a child is already failing.