Mobile Optimization - Is Your Business Prepared for the Future of Content Marketing

Mobile Optimization:Is Your Business Prepared for the Future of Content Marketing?

From the Content Delivery & Optimization learning series

© 2013 Mobile Optimization: Is Your Business Prepared for the Future of Content Marketing? 2

TABLE OF CONTENTSIntroduction

Chapter 1 - Mobile Trends in Digital Consumption

Chapter 2 - Mobile Impact: Content Marketing

Chapter 3 - Mobile Impact: Organic Search

Chapter 4 - Mobile Success: Adaption is Key

About Docalytics

Mobile Optimization:Is Your Business Prepared for the Future of Content Marketing?

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INTRODUCTION

A few short years ago, mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets were just beginning to gain popularity and market share. Businesses did not have to optimize their content and websites for mobile devices because only a small portion of their customers/users were accessing information with a mobile device. Fast forward to 2013, where mobile browsing now accounts for 15% of all internet traffic, a 150% YoY increase from 20122.

This means that more business professionals conduct their online activities such as business research, vetting, or product comparison via their mobile devices - making it critical that businesses prioritize mobile development and manage their content and websites in such a way that customers can easily access it on a variety of platforms. If businesses fail to embrace this “new normal” in content marketing, they run the risk of losing customers, market share, thought leadership, and search ranking.

Has your business prepared for the oncoming mobile device takeover?

In this ebook we will explore emerging mobile trends, how content marketing is evolving with the increase in mobile device users, mobile’s impact on organic search results, and business risks of not optimizing for the mobile platform

12xincrease in mobile data traffic globally last year

compared to the year 20001

2012

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MOBILE TRENDS IN DIGITAL CONSUMPTION

The prevalence of mobile is increasing faster now than ever before, with the number of mobile-connected devices set to exceed the world’s population in 20131. The average selling price of smartphones and tablets dropped 8% in 2012 alone and another 9% drop is expected by the end of 2013, making them cheaper and easier to obtain and increasing adoption rates across the globe3.

Business enterprises are also coming around to the idea of enabling employees to access company intranet and resources via company provided tablet or “bring your own device” policy, which can help increase productivity. In April 2012, 94% of the Fortune 500 were either testing or deploying iPads to their workforce4.

These large corporations were previously reluctant to allow employees to use their mobile devices for work matters due to security concerns, but as manufacturers and service providers continue to improve their enterprise level encryption and security for mobile devices, mobile proliferation in the business world continues to accelerate.

The number of mobile devices isn’t the only metric seeing growth in the mobile space. Existing smartphone usage has almost doubled, with 80% growth YOY in the average amount of data consumption per smartphone in 20122. Tablets alone on average have generated 2.4 times more data traffic than smartphones in this regard, further evidencing their explosive growth over the last two years.

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Mobile Optimization: Is Your Business Prepared for the Future of Content Marketing?


MOBILE TRENDS IN DIGITAL CONSUMPTION, CONT.Globally, research indicates that out of a total 591 million internet users residing in China, 464 million are categorized as mobile users5. This means a whopping 78.5% of internet users access via mobile device, with similar results coming out of South Korea1. Analysts also predict that Global Mobile Data Traffic will increase 13-fold over the next 5 years, signaling the impending mobile takeover2.

People are becoming more attached to their mobile devices every year. For the majority of business decision makers there exists a “don’t leave home without it” mentality, where research has found that people strongly feel “connected” and “excited” with regards to their smartphones, paving the way for businesses to capitalize on that excitement by delivering content via mobile devices1.

As consumers around the world rely more and more on accessing information on their mobile devices, it becomes more important that businesses review their digital investment and understand the growing need to develop content and websites to best accommodate mobile consumption.



MOBILE IMPACT:CONTENT MARKETING

As the mobile platform evolves, the realities of content consumption are changing with it. A growing body of research highlights the fact that prospective customers are moving their product search, as well as industry content consumption activity to their mobile devices, and much of their business activity is taking place outside of the standard office hours and locations. Executives are now “bringing the office” with them wherever they go. Mobile devices are extending executives’ business hours well beyond standard hours, where executives report heavy usage during their own time and on business-related travel5.

This trend is particularly observable with the Tech B2B Customer, where one in two are multi-device users and shoppers.7

For those doing industry research or product comparisons, 32% download content on their mobile devices5. This trend is expected to eventually reflect the preferences of among all B2B customers, as history shows the broader B2B marketplace typically follows the usage patterns of the the tech sector.

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9 out of 10 senior-level executives revealed in a survey conducted by Forbes Insights that they use smartphones on a day-to-day basis, and that they are increasingly migrating to tablets for their business-related tasks6



MOBILE IMPACT: CONTENT MARKETING, CONT.For businesses this means that in order to meet their customer's information requirements, companies have to understand and cater to the range of platforms that their content will be consumed. They have to ensure that their content is readily available and viewable across all devices, whether it be a PC, iPhone, or Android tablet.

Given rigid formatting and download requirements, PDF documents and downloadable presentations have been notoriously difficult to access on mobile devices, so it’s important that marketers provide a viable mobile optimized solution to their audience, lest they risk losing prospective customers and market share.

The research shows a clear acceleration towards a mobile-first proliferation in the digital space. Even today, most executives report turning to mobile devices first when initiating the purchase process - a large number even reported they prefer to use tablets over PCs for business research and purchasing5.

Within a year or two the majority of prospective customers searching for and consuming content will be doing so on a mobile device, therefore it is imperative that businesses cater to this revolution in content marketing.



MOBILE IMPACT:ORGANIC SEARCH

Going forward, mobile optimization will have an impact on organic search engine results. Google has recently announced that websites which are not mobile friendly or cause problems for mobile users will be demoted in search rankings, in an effort to create a friendlier mobile environment for internet users8. Business and marketers run the risk of losing hits and reducing their exposure to potential customers by not adapting their content for the mobile platform.

User’s tendencies to click on organic search results first highlights the importance for business and marketers to get as high on the organic search result rankings for their target keywords and phrases as possible. If businesses fail to optimize their websites for mobile users, the Google results for their content will be overtaken by competitors who are ahead of the mobile curve. This is even more significant in light of the report that 48% of Tech B2B customers discover brands that they were previously unaware of through a search engine6.

It is pivotal for businesses to get their content on the first page of Google for their target keywords and phrases, and mobile optimization is one way of reaching that goal.

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68% of the time, a user clicks on one of the top 3 results when conducting Google searches9

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MOBILE SUCCESS:ADAPTION IS KEY

Businesses that don’t adapt to the coming mobile takeover have much to lose. Imagine that an executive is conducting Google searches on his iPad for industry whitepapers, and sees a result he likes and clicks through. Unfortunately, the website hosting the whitepaper he wants to read is not optimized for mobile devices, and when he tries to click the Download button after spending 5 minutes entering in his information for access, it doesn’t work and the PDF is never opened on his tablet.

Annoyed for having wasted his time and not able to read the whitepaper, he goes back to the search results, finds a competitor with a great mobile interface, and gives them his information for their mobile optimized content. In this hypothetical interaction the business with non-optimized content lost the opportunity to engage with a potential customer, while opening the door for a competitor to win the business.

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As mobile is utilized more and more by potential customers for research and content consumption, this scenario will become more commonplace as businesses fail to evolve. Those who neglect the mobile platform will be digital losers, as their competitors recognize and adapt their ability to target a growing mobile customer base. In the Forbes Insight survey, 73% of the senior-level executives indicated that a bad experience with a mobile website will make them less likely to conduct business with the company in the future5.

Even more telling, one-third of respondents reported too many of their suppliers’ sites or interfaces are non-mobile optimized websites or apps that are hard to see, read or navigate5. This indicates the opportunity for businesses to increase traction and gain more customers by ensuring their platform is available and consistent across all mobile devices.



MOBILE SUCCESS: ADAPTION IS KEY, CONT.At the moment, businesses have the opportunity to capitalize on mobile and get ahead of the game. The Pew Research Center just recently reported that 77% of cell internet users say they experience slow download speeds that prevent things from loading as quickly as they would like10.

This signifies that there is opportunity there for businesses and marketers to make it easier for mobile browsers with slower than ideal internet to access and experience their content when its tailored for lower bandwidth mobile internet.

By not making it easy for mobile device users to access document based content like white papers, ebooks, case studies or presentations, businesses stand to lose leads, customers, and search rankings - the lifeblood of many content marketing campaigns.

Therefore, it’s imperative for businesses to evolve and optimize for mobile - or die as they hand over sales opportunites to the competition.


ABOUT DOCALYTICSDocalytics’ powerful cross-platform technology allows customers to track user interaction with documents and sales collateral such as whitepapers, eBooks, case studies, presentations, sell sheets and other documents.

Docalytics empowers businesses to produce better content, get more sales-ready prospects and prioritize sales outreach.

For the first time your sales and marketing teams will be able to track exactly how prospective customers engage with your content - while more efficiently capturing lead data as a prospective customer engages with the document versus having to capture everything upfront before a visitor can determine the relevancy of the content.

Fore more information visit www.docalytics.com

SOURCES:1 - Cisco Visual Networking Index: Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update, 2012–20172 - KPCB Internet Trends Report 20133 - IDC Worldwide Quarterly Mobile Phone Tracker, 6/4/20134 - Apple Inc,. FY 2012 2nd Quarter Earnings Report5 - CNNIC Report, July 20136 - The Connected Executive: Mobilizing the Path to Purchase; Forbes Insights July 20137 - Google Think Insights: The Evolving Path of Today’s Tech B2B Customer8 - Google WebMaster Central Blog: Changes in rankings of smartphone search results, 6/11/20139 - eConsultancy 10- Pew Internet: Mobile, June 6, 2013

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Mobile Optimization - Is Your Business Prepared for the Future of Content Marketing

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