Know-How Exchange : Strategy

Get ready for it. It is coming.

The big question I see is "How much do you have to change what you have for a website to be ready?"

Until recently you needed to create a WAP site that was a very poor cousin of a real site. Now, with iPhones, etc., you can do a real HTML site. Maybe it just needs to be a little lighter and less complex than one you'd make for a high-speed interaction. I'd think of it more like dial-up with a smaller screen.

People are definitely using mobile sites for service and comparison shopping. They are not necessarily buying with it yet.

With a Content Management System (CMS) you can have different templates based on the browser type. This allows you to have a simpler page, stripped down page for mobile users while not having to maintain mutiple sites.

In general I send pretty simple emails as it is so they are not much of a problem to mobile s they are mostly text.

Mike

i just had last week a speaker from the mobile industry in my online marketer seminar i have developped to make the marketers fit for the future.

even if there are all the new possibilities we are in the early bird phase. as tandembike said: get ready.

also a good input is mikee's cms tip to underline that you aren't that far away of beeing ready if you have the right cms.

in the seminar the mass functioning mobile marketing actions focus on SMS (at least in europe):
1. onpack actions (if you have a produt you can make "onpack" advertising) > "send the code via SMS to...and win" (he has shown a case study with swiss cheese - if it's even working with cheese, so other products will have it easier)
2. information-/ newsfeeds via sms
3. qr codes (barcodes) or easier "send sms XYZ to..." to get an URL back via SMS (this is to shorten the way to a mobile website because typing a long URL is no fun)
4. applications (java or iphone apps) for guides (festival, restaurants, events)

it's very different if you target business people > blackberry (about 14 million devices in fiscal year 2008 > https://www.rim.com/investors/pdf/40_F_FINAL.pdf ) or endconsumers > nokia, motorola (they are just starting mobile internet to make it also nice usable on their devices) or the new generation with iphones (probably 15 millions sold by the end of the year. apple sales goal is 10M). so the question is on what device will you meet your customers best?

if you check the worldwide mobile phone sales, you will get a feeling on what probably the best way will be for you: https://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=612207

regards

floto

Hi Greg,

Timely post, since we last talked I have launched a new company to provide mobile marketing solutions. Pepper Blue Marketing is doing great, but I had been looking into mobile for some time and the necessary pieces fell into place. I will send you the website info under private email.

Tim Pepper