With the daily sales rate of iPhones zooming past the world’s daily birth rate, and smart device sales outstripping PC sales 4:1, it’s no surprise that the explosion of the mobile device market has changed our most basic life behaviors.

There are over 650k Apple Apps (June 2012), over 430k Android Apps (April 2012) and Windows Phone has almost cracked the 100k mark. You can get apps for anything these days. Games, photos, shopping, productivity, social networking and even a bunch of useful business tools. They have become such an integral part of our life its any wonder how we’ve ever lived without them. Here is a previous list of our favourite apps.

Ever wondered how we use our smart devices?

Well, the average US mobile web user consumes over half their media via their mobile devices, outpacing TV and PCs. We’re also consuming our media in more places than ever before:

Source: www.inmobi.com

Are we more productive, or more distracted?

We seem to cram our media consumption hours with:

Source: www.inmobi.com

In fact, the ubiquity of smart devices hasn’t just changed the lives and behaviours of users, it has caused seismic changes and disruption for your brand.

A digital marketing strategy has never been more vital to ensure you’re connecting with your beloved audience when they want, how they want and where they want.

Taking this one step further, your digital marketing strategy should be cross platform compatible, not device centric. That is, engineered to work across the various screens we interact with: from mobile, tablets, smart TVs through to in-car touch screens and even Internet fridges!

To have the best chance at achieving your digital marketing objectives, your smart-device-ready strategy should embrace:

- Responsive sites: Where the layout and content adapts to the size of screen it is presented on. This will provide your audience with the optimal mobile browsing experience, which is great for the performance of your digital presence and brand reputation

- Social media integration: The astronomical growth of social media cannot be ignored. In 2010, ending a 23 year run, Pepsi Cola pulled out of advertising in the Super Bowl and replaced it with Social Media. Sure, its not for every brand, but with most Facebook and Twitter users preferring to post with their mobile devices, it is important that brands are enabling, not hindering, the discussion with their audience

- Location based marketing: GPS can now track a smart device down to a square meter. This is a really powerful ability and customers want their brands to embrace this by providing relevant offers / touch points near them

- Mobile Wallet: More and more smart device users are aware of wave and pay, and are willing to try this service for low value transactions. Google, Visa and PayPal already have their own payment services, and Barclays recently launched its ‘Pingit’ app. Ex Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey, has also launched ‘Square' which lets almost anyone pay for goods and services with their mobile devices. Last month, Square signed a strategic partnership with Starbucks so customers can now buy their skim orange mocha frappuccino with whipped cream using Square’s payment system in over 7000 stores. Watch this space as the mobile payments ecosystem becomes more mature and consumers take the ‘leap of faith’

- A Content Strategy that caters to shorter attentions, bite sized media consumption and smaller screen

- Brand guidelines that are well translated to an explosion of digital mediums to ensure a consistent brand identity online and offline

Even though technology has become an integral part in our personal lives, somehow it can still feel intimidating for our business decisions. Don’t be scared of the technology, embrace it. There are enormous opportunities for brands to engage with their audiences in wonderfully innovative ways, but don’t feel like you have to be on every screen with your first digital marketing strategy. By surfing the wave of technology, you can leverage the powerful role of smart devices in winning the hearts, minds and pockets of your tech savvy consumers.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. Just make sure you’re not the titanic...

If you ‘d like to continue this conversation, we’d love to hear from you!

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