Building A Successful Mobile Web Content Strategy

By Karen O’Brien and Chris Generalis

The mobile web offers users access to information anytime, anywhere. Companies that are able to design and implement a successful mobile content strategy as a part of an overall web strategy will be able to reap the rewards of this exciting and challenging emerging medium.

Re-Purposing Your Web Content

One of the most common pitfalls for companies entering the mobile space is simply transcoding a website to fit on a phone. This problem is exacerbated by search engines that return the website URL instead of the mobile URL in the search results. First, users do not consume content on mobile devices the same way as they do on the web. Mobile devices require line-by-line scrolling of text and sites with large amounts of information become overwhelming to navigate on a handheld device.

Delta Airlines mobile site

Delta Airlines transcoded site

Transcoded sites can also rely on technologies that are ubiquitous on web browsers but not on mobile browsers, such as JavaScript. Hopefully the introduction of the .mobi domain will create a standard whereby search engines will be able to deliver better results. In the meantime, successful companies in the mobile space must design sites to be concise, useful, and usable with short, clear text navigation links to key information.

Things to Keep in Mind

It is important to understand the limitations of accessing information on mobile devices before developing a strategy. The two obvious limiting factors of this medium are size and speed. Companies can’t cram loads of information on a single page as they can on the web. Information must be presented in bite-sized chunks with clear navigation links on every page. Too much information on a page will force the user to scroll endlessly on a page causing a poor user experience.

Because of slower connection speeds, most users do not browse the mobile web the way they do on a computer. This is important because content owners must ensure that useful and usable information is easily accessible at the top levels of the site. Personalization is important on mobile devices because it offers a way to serve up only the content that is relevant to the user, thereby minimizing the clutter on the small screen.

The Basics – Where Should Marketers Start?

The promise of anytime, anywhere access to information on mobile phones is a marketer’s dream. The challenge is understanding, embracing, and harnessing the unique capabilities of mobile devices. Below is a list of some of the applications which may be integrated into a mobile strategy:

·Location-Based Services – Get an alert and coupon when you are near a Starbucks, locate an ATM when you need one, get directions on a map ·Text – deliver news headlines, weather, gossip, or just about anything else ·Premium Content – sell wallpapers, ringtones, ring-back tones, video ringers, videos, applications, and games Video – In general, mobile video content should be snack-sized. Just like the web, mobile content can be streamed or downloaded. There are other considerations when developing mobile content such as short scene cuts and excessive panning which cause the screen to repaint and are processor intensive. ·Alerts – SMS, MMS, and WAP push alerts for sports scores, news headlines, and flight cancellations are good examples of useful mobile services. Companies must be very careful about mobile alerts as spamming the mobile inbox could have a negative impact on the brand. ·Social networking – upload photos and videos to your My Space, Friendster, or Flickr blog. Coupons – companies can send a user a bar coded coupon via SMS to a mobile device. Users don’t need to remember to bring the coupon to the store, it’s already on their phone and can be read by most ordinary bar code scanners. ·Shortcode campaigns – make static marketing advertisements interactive with a mobile shortcode. This provides the user with a call-to-action and gives the company an opportunity to collect valuable information. ·Contests – collect information and even generate revenue through competition entries using premium SMS, like American Idol ·Polling – find out what users think about a topic through a mobile poll ·Subscriptions – access to premium content for paid subscribers Download Content – Side load content from the web and move it to your mobile device like an iPod ·Memory Card – get a memory card for your device with pre-loaded content such as applications, videos, music, and games ·Blue Tooth – get rich content at high speed when connected to a blue tooth server

Consider this example of the future…while sitting in the park you see an advertisement for a movie with a mobile shortcode. You send a text message and seconds later receive back a WAP push message. With a single click, you are redirected to the mobile site for the movie where you read reviews, watch the trailer, and locate a theater and showtime. You invite friends and purchase mobile tickets seamlessly through your phone to avoid long lines at the theater. You can even buy a wallpaper, ringtone, or mobile game based on the movie right from the site.

An advertisement for a new software product launch contains a mobile shortcode. You send a quick text and receive a WAP push message your mobile phone. With a single click, you connect to the mobile site where you can read reviews, watch a brief testimonial video and sign up for a free 30 day trial. You provide an email address and a message is sent to download your trial software on your PC. You are also able to purchase a mobile version of the software as well as download wallpapers, ringtones or mobile games based upon the product. Finally, you can subscribe to mobile and email alerts for future product releases, newsletters and other information.

Summary

Marketers are only beginning to see the potential of mobile web content. The media and entertainment industries (B2C) are blazing the trail for what is possible, so many possibilities exist that we haven’t discovered on the B2B side. Today, marketers should begin testing mobile content as a strategic part of an overall web plan.

About the Authors

Karen O’Brien is a Partner at Crimson Consulting Group where she leads the Interactive Services Practice, bringing together business objectives, and technology and user experience to help companies deliver effective and high-value web programs. Read Karen’s blog

Chris Generalis is a Consultant with Crimson Consulting and former Director of Digital Marketing for Sony Pictures where he led the mobile content and marketing efforts in the UK.

Crimson Consulting Group (www.crimson-consulting.com) provides strategic marketing consulting services to some of the most successful companies in the world. Our clients include Adobe, Cisco, HP, Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Seagate, Sun, Symantec and Verizon.

To contact us about this or other topics of interest, please email us at: info@crimson-consulting.com.

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