Three Reasons Mobile Changes Everything in Marketing
May 27, 2011 4 Comments
The research about mobile usage does not do mobile justice. Sure, 82% of executives have a smartphone. 49% of C-level executives search on a mobile device.
Yes, mobile is pervasive, but numbers alone don’t capture how much mobile can change marketing.
Many B2B marketers are catching on slowly, distracted by low mobile usage on corporate websites or a limited understanding of how mobile marketing and mobile accessibility contributes to goals.
Mobile Changes How We Communicate
For B2B marketing, mobile isn’t just another channel in the mix. Mobile fundamentally has changed how we communicate. Look around in a meeting. Blackberries and smartphones are out and active (are they ever put away?). This has been so normal for seven or eight years that today many of us barely notice it.
Mobile Changes How We Consume
With the launch of the iPhone, mobile devices became media consumption devices. Compared to the iPhone, Blackberries and other early smartphones were merely communication devices. Now, with high resolution screens and simple navigation, mobile devices have become primary media consumption devices. Smartphones are used walking down the sidewalk and waiting in line as email, social networks or media capture a portion of our attention.
We are not just on Facebook on our mobile devices. I have spoken with a number of B2B publishers that report 8% to 10%, or more, of their traffic is now from mobile devices, and it is growing.
Mobile Changes How We Create
Mobile devices now allow us to create, not just consume. With applications like Posterous, WordPress and Blogger available for iPhone and Android, content creators are now creating on their mobile devices. Without my mobile, Digital B2B Marketing would not even exist, nearly every post has been drafted on my mobile, and more than one has been written an published entirely from my mobile devise.
Courtesy of our mobile devices, we are always connected. And with that change, we are always communicating, consuming or even creating.
Is your marketing ready for an always-on audience, or are you still waiting for someone to sign on?
This post was originally published as The Three C’s of Mobile Will Change B2B Marketing on the Babcock & Jenkins blog
About Eric Wittlake
I am a digital and B2B marketer with a background in online media and analytics. I work with B2B clients on media and integrated marketing programs. You can connect with me on Twitter at @wittlake or in the comments here on my Digital B2B Marketing blog.
I am a digital and B2B marketer with a background in analytics and online media. Based in Portland, Oregon, I run the media group at 
Digital B2B Marketing 
You’re absolutely making a great point. This is phenomena is growing faster in real-time interactive engagement, online! On http://stanzr.com, we’ve just recently updated our software to be Android available after receiving numerous requests to engage in conversations, via mobile. It’s our view that creating a quality mobile experience for real-time customer demand. Firms that are not ready to engage in real-time, on mobile, are playing catch up and are letting other companies and platforms take ownership of their customers attention and businesses.
It’s time for marketers to get ahead of the game and make sure they have mobile platforms that give them immediate, real-time access when their customers call on them.
Taariq Lewis
Founder
http://stanzr.com
Taariq, great to hear you will be supporting Android as well. I have become dependent on it, and am continuously frustrated by applications or services that don’t support it effectively.
Thanks for the comment!
Agree wholeheartedly with the article and with Taariq’s sentiments. It is still mind boggling to me just how much of an enigma the subject of mobile is to the end user or at least one’s I talk with. I would be curious to know what readers and responders to this post feel like is a good timeframe before mobile is adopted by society at large, much in the same way desktop has been fully accepted and looked to as a viable platform for marketing and PR. From my vantage point there is still a big mountain to climb on this one in terms of educating and making the populous aware of this emerging trend that is mobile.
Ben, based on the data I see and the behavior of those around me, I think the primary challenge is marketing, not mobile. As a population, we have embraced mobile, but it isn’t a marketing-friendly medium [interruption marketing is even less welcome]. Based on the data, and looking at those around me on the train during my commute, or even in a restaurant, mobile is accepted and pervasive. Now it is in the marketers court, how will they communicate with, publish for and build relationships with mobile audiences. Or will they wait for them to get back to their laptops, and risk being forgotten in the process?
Thanks for taking the time to comment, I appreciate it!