Tag: mobile

- by Chris Sykes

The Consumerisation of B2B Marketing

So what do we mean when we say the ‘consumerisation’ of B2B marketing? B2B marketing is now driven by buyers and not organisations! Professionals will choose what to interact with and where to access content. Unless content is atomised, energised and optimised, many campaigns will be simply lost!

We’ve all seen the research we’re being continually fed into today’s increasing mobile dominated device landscape. Focus is turning to the creation of innovative assets that are relevant and engaging – content that is served up in bite-size and engaging chunks for easy consumption across social media platforms, digital channels and mobile devices.

Some stats to digest

According to Canalys, in 2011 smartphone shipments topped PCs by 73 million units. Gartner stated that Q2 2012 was the seventh consecutive quarter showing a decline in PC sales. Gartner also estimates tablet computer sales will explode across the next four years selling 60% as many units as PCs by 2015. That’s over 300 million units! Microsoft also gets in on the act saying that by 2013, Tablet sales will be circa 180 million units.

Professionals now expect a mobile interface and the latest major Operating Systems will start to deliver more on that expectation. Our behaviours, navigation and interaction instincts are also changing: we now touch, pinch, swipe, drag and drop. The vast majority of us smartphone and tablet users, 81% in fact access work email on them. Internet access and social media are the top two uses of a phone and email usage will overtake phone calls on smartphone devices.

The net, net of all this is that marketing content has to adjust to the device and lifestyle. IT in the workplace is becoming consumerised, with many companies allowing employees to choose their preferred devices. This is leading the consumerisation of B2B marketing.

Tablets and smartphones have very different screen real estate and navigation to the business desktop and notebook devices. In fact, phones are getting bigger rather than smaller as screen sized is preferred over form factor and weight – that was the old mobile world and goodbye Nokia and Sony Ericsson. Business data and content are increasingly consumed on the go, so content too must go mobile.

Content is changing from words and images to interactive graphics and video. ‘Empathy’ videos can convey a strong business message in an ‘advert length’ clip for a B2B audience. Business professionals favour short form content over longer programmes, as 42% of video is consumed at the workplace in ‘snackable’, short form clips. Here’s a good example.

So what did we learn in that minute?

We learnt quite a bit about Dave and ‘his views’ as a typical B2B prospect. His attention is limited and is continually multi-browsing and multi-tasking. To attract his attention content needs to be ‘atomized’ from more traditional locations and that the messages fed to him need to be precise, engaging, relevant and compatible with mobile devices.

So with all this in mind, where does a B2B Marketer start? It doesn’t mean you start from scratch, you can re-energise and utilise existing content. Old assets still fit the desktop environment but can be repurposed for easier consumption and mobile device. Messages can and should be replicated across different channels maximising content creation ROI. Content must be creative and engaging or expect to be ignored.

- by Josie Rogers

Solving the multi-device challenge with HTML5

The multi-device user experience

Users are more demanding and expect a high quality experience. We are now working in a constantly connected environment where people access the internet from a number of devices via desktop, tablet or smart phone. Many people own more than one internet connected device. In fact, Cisco predicts that by the end of 2012, the number of mobile-connected devices will exceed the number of people on earth.

The difficulty to overcome is that mobile users expect a web browsing experience on their phone that is comparable to a laptop or desktop PC. With multiple mobile O/S platforms to support, this leaves developers with a challenge – creating a website that will provide an engaging experience across each and every platform and browser. With so many constraints to think about, what is the best solution?

Enter HTML5

HTML5 techniques help bridge the gaps between desktop, tablet and mobile experiences however, many have been unsuccessful in their attempts.

The original HTML was invented over twenty years ago. It has gone through a number of updates, but it’s been more than a decade since the last one.

The web is accelerating – over time the internet has got better and now has a better degree of dependability. With modern browsers, we are now seeing more developer issues being solved. Updates to HTML standards and specifications bring a number of key benefits:

  • Rich and dynamic creative content e.g. videos, graphics and audio can be added into a webpage more easily without the use of plug-ins
  • The video experience is superior, as it is native to the browser
  • Location can be tied into your web applications
  • Load speed times can increase. In a world where every second counts, this has a positive effect for reducing page abandonment
  • HTML5 runs across mobile devices including all smart phones and tablets giving a consistent experience for all, thus helping developers solve the multi-device challenge

Let’s see it in practice

We’ve recently launched a new digital interaction application for Zebra Technologies built using HTML5. In browsers that support HTML5, you really experience the difference from Flash-based solutions. The site uses HTML5 video which enables the video to be viewed across a number of devices, without having to use plug-ins (that relies on the user having plug-ins installed) leading to a better user experience. Take a look at the Zebra Virtual world for transport on your mobile, tablet or desktop now and let us know what you think!

The latest addition to the Virtual Zebra world has been built in HTML5


 

- by Joe Duffelen

The Future is Mobile

The question used to be: do you have a mobile phone? Now we’re asking; what’s  your smartphone? Apple?, Android? or Blackberry? Last year something happened that has never happened  before; according to Henry Blodget, the number of smartphones sold exceeded the number of personal computers (PCs) sold.

With a rapidly growing smartphone and tablet market, the operating system developers and manufacturers face a strong battle to become the dominant player within this competitive space. It doesn’t take a genius to realise that Android and Apple are the current market leaders and arguably other manufacturers and operating systems are falling at the wayside. Surely, for them, it is now too late, or perhaps not! The Business Insider slide deck by Henry Blodget reveals that over half the mobile audience in the U.S does not use a smartphone; so if IDC’s predicted 49.5% increase of smartphone purchases occurs by 2015, there is certainly room for Microsoft, Blackberry or any other manufacturer to establish themselves as market leaders. Although time is of the essence and they must move fast.

Is your business mobile?

The Financial Times cites a JPMorgan prediction that 657 million smartphones will leave stores in 2012 and IDC predicts smartphone sales will rise to 982 million in 2015. It has been a prediction on the tip of many industry experts’ tongues for a while; organisations will NEED to be mobile savvy. Fast, relevant and easily navigated information is what is wanted by  every organisation and every user.

From a business perspective, this can also only mean two things. Your web presence needs to shift from the desktop to the mobile device and you must discover how you engage and transact via the mobile medium.

What is the way forward?

At Volume we have developed a number of mobile apps, mobile sites and mobile-optimised sites:

Our own web site www.volume.co.uk is mobile-optimised. The site is developed using the latest technology (MVC HTML/CSS2/CSS3 and jQuery) to ensure the user experience is of the highest quality if viewed on a smartphone or tablet device. 10% of the people who have visited the Volume website in 2012 have come from mobile devices.

If a user visits your website through their smartphone or tablet device to only discover the website to be incompatible this could mean a number of lost opportunities; a sale, a lead, a potential business partner?

Then there are Mobile apps. Mobile application software is designed specially to offer the user a seamless experience, for a specific product, service or game. Volume designed and developed a mobile app for Zebra Technologies, ZipShip. This was intended to allow Zebra printer users to search for available printer consumables and media for various Zebra machines, cancelling out phone calls, emails and the waiting game; making the process mobile and instantaneous. The beauty of ZipShip is the convenience, ease of use and captivating trance it has on a consumer; there are no distractions, just you and the product you need to be delivered when and where you want. There is obviously one implication to consider when creating a mobile application; an app is only available on the specific operating system in which it was designed for – to make it available on all operating systems could prove costly. Therefore research into your target market is essential to ensure your mobile application is relevant and used.

‘Mobile optimisation versus mobile apps’ is another blog. For now, I will leave you with this: Dan Frommer from the Business Insider quoted Matt Galligan saying;

…the future of mobile is the future of everything.

So watch this space and think carefully about how your business can be active by preparing for the mobile take-over, instead of letting it become something you employ once traffic to your website and online sales begin to decrease.