- A day doesn’t go by without someone asking me about mobile media.
At first glance it sounds like a relatively simple problem and is usually summarized by a question like “what is the best mobile app for us?”
If only it were that simple for a company.
The mobile trend is accelerating faster and faster.
It isn’t a question of if someone is connected,
but how, why, and when they are connected.
As a business professional there are dozens of reasons to use different mobile technologies ranging from 3g/4g wireless access, tablet applications, QR codes, GPS services, photo sharing, and content management systems.
There are also a variety of technical questions revolving around IT infrastructure, HR training, and on-going business integration.
Some basic questions I would have for any company looking to offer a mobile experience-
Basic 101
- What areas of our business could benefit?
- What is the most practical and results oriented project?
- How will I define, track, and improve my results?
- Who else has done something like this?
Who is the audience?
- Is it internal or external?
- do they represent revenue or cost savings?
- do they use iPhone/iPad?
- do they use WIFI?
- do they use offline apps?
- do they need push verification?
- do they need SEO?
- do they publish content with high volume storage needs (large video files, etc.)
- does this audience have active social media channels?
- does this audience have an active online or offline community?
- do they utilize GPS or geo-location data?
Mobile specific questions
- does the mobile idea support revenue/cost savings?
- does the mobile idea attrition or undermine current revenue?
- does the mobile idea use a native or web delivery?
- what is the overall budget of the entire ‘web experience’?
(you don’t want to blow your entire web site budget on your app…) - what is the overall app marketing/user acquisition strategy?
- what is the method of deployment and training?
- what is the method of service and support?
- what is the product lifetime of the mobile idea?
The nutshell you need to crack
The idea around mobile media training isn’t that mobile ideas are either good or bad…. but that most mobile ideas are half-baked.
Costs, efficiencies, and revenues need to take multiple impact points and coordinate and effective business projects.
For large businesses this means that multi-disciplinary teams need to work together to distribute costs and maximize a collateral effort. Singular departments looking for singular efficiencies will miss opportunity areas and education savings.
Smaller businesses need to focus on retaining and growing current revenue using mobile technologies, as this goal is often far easier to accomplish than trying to generate new customers through mobile media.
