More and more people have mobile phones and, more and more, they're using those phones for text messaging and to surf the Web. To keep up, your online marketing needs to go mobile, too.
Now that mobile Web browsing and text messaging are firmly established, businesses are scrambling to develop coherent mobile marketing strategies. Meeting customers where they are means cutting the wires and going mobile, but the marketing best practices that work on notebook or desktop computer browsers and e-mail clients don't translate to mobile Web browsing and text messaging. Since co-founding Volantis in 2000, CEO Mark Watson has been grappling with the challenges of multichannel delivery and in that time has gained valuable insights about what works and what doesn't on the mobile Web. Recently, he shared his perspective on the opportunity for small and midsize businesses.
bMighty: What does having a presence on the mobile Web mean today?
Mark Watson: A growing business can have a presence on the mobile Web just by having a Web site. But it doesn't necessarily present well on the smaller screens. The iPhone is quite different in terms of having a browser supporting open source systems but a lot of it depends upon browser features. A site also will still have those phone presentation issues, especially with extra features. Also, the phone is used differently -- it's an at-a-glance medium as opposed to the PC, where a user can sit in front of it for ages.
For instance, a taxi company will have a lot of details on its company's Web site, like the history of the company and pictures of its cabs. But on the phone, users just want to book a taxi. They don't want all that other information. Therefore, businesses should look at their sites and think 'if I put this on the mobile site will it annoy users?'
A mobile Web presence is designed to be used on a phone using Web technology. The information should be useful to users on the phone.
Don't Miss: The Best Smartphones To Consider Now
bMighty: Is it important to have a presence on the mobile Web?
Watson: A lot of people are on the mobile Web aren't on the PC Web. It's a question of reach. Increasingly, customers you would think are on the PC are on the mobile Web. In the financial markets, people are using their BlackBerry for their Web access. Kids are using their mobile phones and in the emerging markets, phones have an even higher penetration than broadband. In Turkey, there are 40 million subscribers to Turkish cell and 4 million broadband subscribers. If you want to do business on the Internet, you better do business on the mobile Web.
Increasingly, for a lot of kinds of businesses there are certain times they want to reach people when they are not on their PCs and provide alternative prices -- when people are shopping or looking for goods and they are in your vicinity. We run eBay's U.K. mobile service and there were big issues with employers blocking access to eBay. Employees were accessing it on the mobile Web.
There are a lot of opportunities to reach people in different situations and reach people who don't even use a PC at all. Then the issue becomes why is getting on the mobile Web so complex? The answer is because there are so many different phones and different screen sizes and different browser technologies and different networks and different capabilities. And they are changing all the time.
bMighty: How should a growing business get started on the mobile Web?
Watson: I would suggest setting up a small site on the mobile Web and keep it simple -- don't waste too much time with too much stuff. There are a few ways to go about this: You can implement a stripped-down user interface but if you're a business, you'll want to put some branding on the site. Also, your competitors are making their sites very sophisticated.
bMighty: Should businesses think about which phones to target?
Watson: Look, the iPhone has 1.7% of the smartphone market. If you want to reach a lot of people, don't set up a site just for them. There is technology made by us and other companies that let sites run on a lot of phones. Our technology has 5,000 devices and they are automated to make the site look best on different phones. It's available free as an open source offering. If you have developers who will build a Web site for your business, they can use this device. It's aware technology, it knows about the device and adapts accordingly.
But if you're, let's say, a taxi company, you don't have an internal developer in the company. We've put up a free Web service -- Ubik.com -- and anyone can go in and use a set of templates. There is no developer experience required. They are prebuilt sites. These mobile Web sites sit on top of our automation framework and you just type in the information. You can add advertising in different places.
Don't Miss: bMighty Goes Mobile!
bMighty: How do you market a mobile Web site?
Watson: The issue is about getting the word out about the mobile site and it's a different approach. Using short codes is very effective because it's hard to type [on a phone]. The way they work is you are sending text messages to short codes and that will send a code to get to the site.
But what would you put on your van for your mobile Web site? Businesses should take the shortcut approach which is essentially text messaging. Tell your users to send a word -- like Flower -- to a number and the server sends the telephone number a clickable link. Another way is push services -- the user subscribes and gets text messages about their areas of interest.
There is a proven market out there for mobile marketing so any company without a mobile presence is leaving money on the table. If you jump into the pool, your business will be ahead of the game. There isn't a lot of competitive pressure -- users are there, but a lot of small and midsize businesses aren't there yet.
Search bMighty for other Q&A Stories
Naomi Grossman is assistant editor of bMighty.com.
