Going Mobile?

I went to a BMA (Business Marketing Association) meeting a while back and left (as per usual) with some interesting thoughts. The timely subject (as BMA frequently delivers) was “Marketing Goes Mobile”.

When it comes to mobile branding and communication opportunities, there are a wide-range of alternatives and many important things to think about before jumping in (or not!). These include completely ignoring the medium and dismissing it as irrelevant, to simply being sure your primary site is mobile friendly, to having a fully mobile (alternative) version of your site.

As always should be the case, most critical in determining what’s right for you are the characteristics of your business and offering, your audiences, and, especially your objectives. These strategic considerations are key before undertaking any tactical initiative of course.

Back to the subject at hand, “mobile marketing”, the degree of attention it merits and the appropriate level of tactical execution need be strategically driven and aligned at the outset. Mobile marketing is not right for everyone, nor is any other tactic for that matter. Exceptional branding is inherently custom in my mind at least, never “one-size-fits-all”. On the flip side, mobile marketing may present you with a huge opportunity.

The answer as with many things in life is “it depends”. Whether it’s right for you or not mobile marketing certainly merits your consideration at this point in time, with “consideration” being the operative word. The medium is not only here to stay, but has been here for a while and continues moving forward at lightning speed.

All said, if you do feel the medium and time are right, the following are a few things to keep in mind when designing your “user-experience”:

• “A mobile device may be a small computer, but it’s not a mini-PC.”
• Keep the experience and content simple. Mobile device usage is location specific and often driven by an immediate, basic informational need (“users are task oriented”)
• Mobile devices are time and location dependent with users frequently having little time and often not being in great viewing locations
• Mobil device screens are small - a critical variable to keep in mind while designing a mobile site
• Mobil device users often have limited connectivity
• Mobile users are often transitioning between settings, alternatively, tablet users are most often in a setting/state conducive to more of a time-based experience
• App’s are another tool to think about potentially incorporating into a mobile strategy
• Envisioning your objectives and “what success looks like” (outcomes) will enable you to decide whether a mobile version of your website is a communication tool worth investing in or not

Next time you find yourself in-between meetings, waiting at the bus stop, or anywhere else enabling a little time to think, instead of mindlessly grabbing your mobile device, challenge and enlighten yourself a bit by trying to answer the question “What, if anything, could this (device) do for our customers?”