Who would take the time to fill in a typical B2B lead gen form on their mobile? I’m looking at one now (on my phone) and, (once I found it, and that in itself was pretty hard on a site that sticks two fingers up to mobile users) there’s no way I would have the patience to wade through 10 different questions on a form that is microscopic even when in landscape.
But it seems that there are others out there who have more perseverance than me, and not just one or two either.
As I’m sure you’ve noticed, the new version of Google Analytics provides specific information on mobile traffic, even going down to device level. My team runs a family of optimised sites dedicated to B2B and B2C lead generation and I thought I’d go and have a look to see if we were getting any mobile traffic. Imagine my surprise when I discovered that over 6% of traffic to B2B sites was from mobile devices (on one B2C site it’s 25%). Imagine me picking myself off the floor when this led onto a 3% conversion rate to leads! It seems that business interested in fleet management search on their mobiles after all.
Now although these are high traffic sites, the percentages seem quite low, but our sites are not currently optimised for mobile, and yet we’re getting traffic and leads. More importantly, however, the conversion rate for non mobile users is over twice as high, so there’s the potential for doubling the number of mobile leads – not so inconsequential after all, eh?
So what do I recommend? Well here’s what we’re doing about it:
1. Sort out your forms and make them mobile friendly. This is obviously a quicker job than optimising your whole site for mobile from the get-go, and should result in an increase in conversions from the mobile traffic you are already getting. A couple of tips here:
- Identify mobile users when they arrive and give them the same site but with optimised forms
- It’s all about simplicity and MAKING THINGS BIGGER – smaller screens need bigger text!
- If your form is really long, then ask fewer questions. ‘What?’ I hear you say, ‘But I need all that information’. I’m sure you do, but you’re in B2B. Think funnel, think nurturing. You will get your information, but why not make sure you get potential customers to take that first step and at least fill in a basic form.
2. When you’ve proved that your new forms make a difference it’s time for the bigger job, either optimising your existing site for mobile, or creating a whole parallel one. Either way, I can guarantee it will be worth it.
I’ve waited a long time to say it, but here goes: Mobile is now a useful, ROI-generating B2B marketing tool.
