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Mobile Strategy: What’s Best for your Business?
by Tim Frick
The mobile landscape, although an already booming industry, is still considered uncharted waters for many businesses looking to expand brand awareness. If integrating mobile is on your business’ radar, here are some notions to get you started building a strong strategy.
In his keynote at DrupalCon Chicago, Drupal founder Dries Buytaert said that if he had to build Drupal again from the ground up he would build it first for mobile devices and then support desktop users. In an amazingly short period of time, mobile devices have drastically shifted the online landscape to the point that in 2010 we crossed the threshold of over 50% of all Internet access is being done via handhelds of some sort .
Given the number of potentially costly challenges inherent to developing mobile applications and the sheer number of devices on which your content can potentially run, it makes sense to devise a strategy that’s in line with your business goals beforehand.
Start by asking yourself questions like these:
- Who are you trying to reach?
- How will they access your content?
- Do they have smartphones, feature phones, or both?
- How will they use your content?
- Will this be a free or paid content service?
- Is your content shareable?
- Will you create mobile apps only for a specific platform?
- Will you create content that can be viewed in both standard web browsers and on mobile devices?
- What are your competitors doing (or not doing)?
- How is the mobile site user’s experience unique from the desktop site experience?
- What value will mobile bring to your customers?
- How will you make your mobile content sticky and engaging?
After weighing these questions, consider some other important points…
Be Specific
If you do decide to delve into the mobile application process, it is important to start small. Probably one of the most significant considerations when going mobile is not to bite off more than you can chew. By the sheer nature of its infrastructure, mobile content—be it in the form of an app or just a simple video clip—is digested in small chunks, even smaller than those on the web. Most mobile users don’t want to spend an hour interacting with your content. They usually want one very specific thing. Give it to them as quickly and efficiently as possible.
Understanding your Audience
According to this Vision Mobile blog post, “A successful app will capture the imagination by being relevant, useful and delightful.” Users are prone to impatience and distraction, so understanding what makes them tick and the situations in which they are interacting with your content are critical factors to success. You are vying for the attention of someonw who is likely very busy, especially if they are at work and trying to juggle dozens of other tasks at the same time.
By thoroughly understanding who your audience is, you will have a much better grasp of what specific feature(s) you would want to build into your application to provide a utility or entertainment level that fosters user engagement and inspires the desired behavior. You must also mesh these efforts with the context of your marketing message.
Don’t be a Follower
Don’t build a mobile application for the sake of building a mobile application. Don’t waste time and money if you’re going to put out a mediocre application just because everyone else is doing it. Take this advice from our developer, Whit Nelson: “With a few exceptions, you should build an app if you have a specific problem to solve and a mobile website won’t suffice.” Spend the time, effort, and company dollars necessary to make it a good one. Everyone will benefit from this in the end.
Pricing
To price, or not to price? That is a tough question. If you think about it, a billion free downloads equals zero revenue. In fact, if your app is free it’s going to cost your company money because of the time spent by your developers to create the application.
However, generating revenue should not be the only goal with a brand-extension strategy. Your main goal should be generating a different form of engagement with your users. Consider offering a “free” version of your app, and then let users decide whether or not they would like to invest in a “premium” version with more features and content. Many companies also monetize their free apps with advertising.
The ever-popular Angry Birds iPhone game utilized a creative strategy for ongoing promotion of the game to its audience. There was an available free version, but it only contained a limited amount of levels. Users who bought the original game were treated to many more challenging levels and subsequent free add-ons during the various holiday seasons - Christmas, Valentine’s Day, and St. Patty’s Day. They also offered secret codes to unlock new levels to increase user engagement on their Facebook page. Very clever.
Content in Context
Maintaining the integrity of your app, mobile site, or content remains an ongoing challenge for businesses looking to foster long-term, ongoing engagement levels through mobile channels. This is particularly critical as new devices enter the market at breakneck speed. Create your content in the context for which it is being delivered. Simply transferring media messages from one format to another without this context will ultimately trip up a user’s experience and undermine any sort of integrity you are trying to build. Your content may need to perform successfully across desktop computers, feature phones, smartphones, digital signage networks, and any other number of platforms. Plan and budget accordingly.
While this is particularly true in the B-to-C world, the B-to-B sector can learn a lot from these tactics as well. Mobile B-to-B solutions are still in their infancy and the businesses who will win are the ones who spend the time and money on developing content unique to experiences across devices and platforms.
Conclusion
There are many decisions that need to be weighed before delving into the mobile application world. Not having the right strategy in place could lead to a loss of considerable cash and precious business time. However, if a company has a solid strategy in place and learns a thing or two from what other companies have done, the possibilities for mobile content integration and revenue are significant.
You can also check out my presentation Going Mobile: What’s Best for My Business, presented at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business for more information concerning the mobile technology landscape. Or download a free copy of the mobile e-chapter from my book Return on Engagement: Content, Strategy and Design Techniques for Digital Marketing.
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