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Grandma leapfrogged us

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It was inevitable. She is less and less mobile, so her devices were bound to become more so.

Just promise me one thing: Don’t let grandma ride the mobile wave ahead of your company. She doesn’t need the productivity gains. She doesn’t need to demonstrate a culture of innovation to customers. She doesn’t need to reference her marketing content on the fly.

Cindy, who listened to a talk I gave a few months ago, took the first step and bought herself a tablet. Then she called me and asked where she should start. Five minutes later she was poised to overtake grandma.

Call me for free advice or to discuss a specific project, and let’s make a plan to leapfrog grandma.

Congratulations on your mobile site

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10-20% of your visitors are checking you out from their smartphones or tablets. In under two years, that number will cross the 50% mark, meaning mobile traffic will surpass desktop.

Don’t have a mobile site yet? If you have a website and your customers have smartphones, then you have a mobile site…it’s just unintentional.

To make it more intentional, ask your web people about responsive web design. It means updating and redesigning so that a single site recognizes and adjusts to the device it’s being viewed on.

Now is a good time to start adjusting your site to the way more and more of your visitors choose to view it.

Novelty is sustainable

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Remember your last technology purchase? Was it the latest flat panel TV? A new tablet or smartphone? Lucky you. Feels like technology is changing so rapidly that we can have that excitement once a month forever.

Our apps can be a continuous source of excitement and productivity as well. Canned apps are plentiful, but are less likely to satisfy since their one-size-fits-all design typically doesn’t address our specific needs.

Custom apps, on the other hand, can be an ongoing source of conversation and utility. There’s no substitute for a purpose-built tool that users experience and after doing so, can become instrumental to future improvement and function.

Our apps can generate steady increases in productivity if we design, deploy and iterate with the expectation that novelty is sustainable.

How to pay for a custom app project (3rd in a series of 3)

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Prove the productivity

A B2B sales team’s custom selling tool saved them 30-45 minutes per day per rep, making the ROI on their project just 18 days. Need proof that a mobile project will save time and drive sales? Plenty of data exists, but every situation is unique and so your app strategy will be too. Build mobile tools with tracking and analytics and soon you’ll know exactly how your technology investment is faring and what adjustments are needed to get even more out of it.

In a sales setting, one of the greatest opportunities for mobile technology is to increase the speed at which our salespeople can sell. Get started by shifting funds from antiquated methods and apply technology that accelerates the sales cycle while collecting proof that shows the investment is succeeding.

How to pay for a custom app project (2nd in a series of 3)

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Rethink trade shows tools

Did we really just spend six figures for 15 hours of exhibit time? How is it that we’re challenged to show ROI for every aspect of our marketing budget yet exorbitant trade show spending persists? It’s a merry-go-round that we can’t stop riding. “Trade shows are expensive, but if we don’t go, our customers will think we’re not serious about the segment.” Maybe, maybe not, but if we’ve got at least one more show on the calendar, let’s make the most of it.

How about this year we build some tools that last longer than a hospitality suite hangover? Instead of building another single-use display, put a tablet in the hands of those manning the booth and they’ll be ready to present images and video clips of what’s new and different. Do you have customers that have good things to say? Bring a dozen short testimonial videos and play one for a prospect. Have a new technology that’s better explained with pictures? Show diagrams and animations and replace confusion with comprehension.

You can build mobile apps in the context (and budget) of a trade show and take home impactful tools that can be used all year long.

Innovation is spoken here

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Let’s confess: We B2B marketers are all guilty of overusing the word ‘innovation.’ Innovative products, innovative people, innovative innovation. Let’s take a break from that word and focus on, well, innovation.

No matter what you’re offering, telling your story using mobile technology makes it modern, interesting, and worth a look. Maybe not forever, but today? This quarter? Next year? Definitely. It’s innovative.

Innovation should be evident in our products, services and in how we approach every conversation. Even if we never utter the word again

Your phone is now waterproof

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Smalltalk at the MIM office last week included the story that Apple’s iOS7 update would make iPhones waterproof. And while many people figured it was a hoax, other folks actually believed it. Really.

But maybe it’s not as crazy as it sounds. The metal and glass rectangles in our pockets perform little miracles day in and day out. There’s the miracle of being connected to every other human being worldwide. And the one of being able to access nearly every information resource that ever existed within 2 seconds. Why shouldn’t we expect to be able to dip our phones in a fish tank after a software upgrade?

A handful of folks may have had to replace water-damaged phones, but they’re also the ones that are more likely to believe all of the other little miracles. And maybe they’re putting them to use to win business away from us. Suddenly I don’t feel so smart. Suddenly I’m feeling optimistic about the next software upgrade making my phone waterproof.

Mobile first, the web can wait

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Do you provide specialized information, selection tools, configurators, or calculators to your customers over the web? Would those tools be even more valuable if customers used them while standing in front of a problem that you could help them solve?

Think mobile first. There’s no reason why we need to begin with the web. A web version may not even be necessary. Mobile apps work everywhere (even while seated at a desk.) The only reason we’re accustomed to starting with the web is because the web came first. But now there’s mobile. The web can wait.

Think of releasing your next customer tool as mobile only:

Customer: “Where’s the web version?”

You: “There isn’t one. We did mobile first. It’s aways with you. Use it anywhere. We may or may not do a web version. I’ll call you in a month to ask if it’s necessary.”

As always, start by answering the ‘why’, ‘who’ and ‘where’ for any development project.  Then think mobile first, the web can wait.