B2B Marketing Features

Doug Kessler, Velocity Partners

The consumer marketing world has been predicting 'The Year of Mobile' for about a decade. But for many brands and agencies, 2008 really was the birth of the mobile web.

Three main factors contributed to this tipping point: faster networks; smart devices with full browsers (starting with the iPhone); and flat-rate data plans for users. Today, the mobile web delivers the kind of experience Internet users expect.

It's not surprising that marketers are excited by all this. There are nearly four billion mobile devices in the world and each one spends all day, every day with its owner. This isn't just a new medium, it's a potential juggernaut that could one day dwarf the desktop web.

Every B2B company will one day have at least one mobile website. Many will go much further, with a full-featured corporate presence as well as a range of campaign sites.

With this in mind, here are some of the principles of great mobile web experiences that have emerged from the early successes:

1. Think mobile not .com

Early mobile websites were simply scaled-down desktop sites. That's not good. You need to think about the unique profile of mobile devices and about the unique needs of the mobile user.

On the device side, yes, there are limitations – small screens, slower data rates and often no proper keypad (much less a mouse or printer). But mobiles also do things PCs can't. They can take photos and videos; they can send text messages; they can turn a phone number into a live link that dials the phone; they might be location-aware. Great mobile developers recognise the limits and exploit the advantages.

On the user side, mobile users aren't like desktop users. They probably don't want to download your 360-page white paper but they may well want to get fast access to product specs or to check in on your latest blog post.

2. Make yourself useful

In the consumer world, great mobile websites are either entertaining or useful. In B2B, the emphasis will clearly be on the latter. If you can provide a real service to users on the go, they'll appreciate it and come back for more.

Mobile check-in for airlines and mobile banking are examples. But what about a virus alert service for an IT security company? Don't just think website, think application.

3. Simplify without dumbing down

Mobile content is often geared around 'snackability' – offering short chunks of content for the grazing user.

But while simpler is almost always better in the mobile web, stripping back to bare bones may disappoint users.

4. Make your site findable

A great mobile website does you no good if your target audiences don't know about it or can't find it.

You need to promote your mobile site offline and on your .com websites – a simple icon can help users switch from one to the other.

The URL you choose for your mobile sites can also make a difference. We recommend using the .mobi top-level domain – not just because dotMobi is a client – but because it's the most 'guessable' domain name and performs better on search engines (.mobi is listed in the Internet zone files that the search engines poll).

Different brands use names like m.brand.com but there are too many conventions out there and the marketing world is starting to standardise on .mobi. Whichever name you decide to promote, it makes sense to own all the variants and redirect them to your site.

5. Make sure your site works on all phones

A mobile website that looks great and works perfectly on one device might look like hell and fall down on another. There are tens of thousands of permutations of device, operating system, firmware, version and browser. Phones have different screen sizes and different ways of displaying colours and text. Some have back buttons, some don't.

The best way to solve this problem is by using device detection software and subscribing to a device database like DeviceAtlas.com so your site will automatically serve up content that's right for each device and every user.

If you're ready to start climbing the mobile web learning curve, there's a great resource online at mobiThinking.com (disclosure: Velocity produced and runs this site). For techies, mobiForge.com is excellent.

 

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