There’s no doubt that marketing to mobile devices is more than proliferative in the B2C space; with ringtones, screensavers, shortcode offers and download alerts advertised almost everywhere you look. However, while it is an effective and well-used medium for targeting consumers, it is not typically considered a core B2B medium: so why isn’t it used to such a great extent and how would it benefit the business sector?
Time-pressured, information-hungry business people on the move are increasingly demanding sophisticated mobile communications technology, helping them to be more productive. Mobile provides the perfect platform through which to target these business people: it is direct, ubiquitous, cost-effective and it is safe to assume that all individuals will own some kind of mobile communication device. This may be a simple mobile phone or personal digital assistant (PDA) in the form of newly-introduced devices receiving text, email and Internet, such as the BlackBerry or the iPAQ from HP. With mobile networks now being so widespread, the chances of marketing messages actually reaching them also increases vastly.
However, although mobiles in B2C are proliferative, why hasn’t B2B caught on to the mobile bug?
Text aesthetics
One of the main barriers for mobile marketing in B2B, and reasons it is so successful in B2C, is the proliferative use of text messaging or short message service (SMS) as a main phone function.
SMS in the B2C space is an immediate, blanket-utilised, effective medium, as recipients are very likely to open and read messages and their usage in the consumer space is vast. This contrasts to email, which when perceived to be ‘junk’ is more often than not deleted before it is even opened. Neil Dagger, iPAQ and connected devices business manager at HP, comments, SMS is not an appropriate way of sending business messages as people find it intrusive, a bit like spam email.
Simon Lawrence, data expert, business owner and MD at Information Arts, concurs, I’m a bit of a luddite. I’ve had several unsolicited text messages in the last two years and it really annoys me. I use my phone for calls and texting friends, but I don’t want to use it for anything else, particularly not receiving marketing messages.
Perhaps the reason for this rejection of text is because the medium is so basic; simply conveying text. While this is something that can be seen as appealing and appropriate for consumers, business people are more scrupulous.
Dagger at HP comments, Text messages are low-quality and having a company represented to a new customer in a text message is like faxing a prospective customer: it’s not going to look good.
Text messages are also limited by their length. While it may be easy to explain a consumer message in a few lines, business messages are typically more complicated and need to be professionally presented: not something that a basic text message would be very suitable for.
Peter Rampling, head of business marketing at mobile network O2, comments, The main limitation of SMS for B2B is clearly that the message has to be short and punchy; this is the key issue one comes back to.
Database blues
Another main obstacle particularly with a B2B SMS campaign is the lack of information about who to actually send out the information to. Unless an organisation is a handset or network provider, the mobile phone numbers of business people themselves are hard to come by.
This is also the case with email marketing. Although email is far less invasive, addresses are still guarded fiercely. To a greater extent than PCs, mobile phones are still a personal device, on which many are still not willing to be contacted; particularly if their business phone doubles as a personal handset.
The invasive issue of being contacted via mobile phone and the unwillingness of business decision makers to make numbers available has made the compilation of mobile phone number databases almost impossible.
Lawrence at Information Arts comments, In general, data-owners are not collecting mobile numbers. People [end-user companies] are more insensitive and impatient with telephone research, even if they are asked to clarify their company name, so if you try to gain a mobile number I expect you will be given short shrift. Sourcing mobile numbers is a difficult and expensive process, giving poor-yield for data owners.
The Data Protection Act also forces organisations to treat mobile phone communications as a permission-based medium, which has made the generation of databases of this nature very slow in the B2B space.
Rampling at O2 concurs, The issue is having good quality data; it’s not particularly difficult to set up or run a mobile marketing campaign, but it’s not worth it unless you have a good database of people’s numbers.
The issue of priorities in marketing is also pertinent. As Chris Sykes, creative director and founder at agency Volume, comments, compiling a database of mobile numbers is not high up in the B2B arena right now. Although this type of campaign would need to start with a database, right now it’s quite low down on the agenda.
Techie spec
The unwillingness of business mobile phone users to offer-up their numbers may not be something that will change immediately. However, another hurdle that may be overcome more quickly, relates to mobile Internet, which has long been promised but slow to arrive. Slow Internet connections make channels, such as banner advertising, unrealistic.
Wireless application protocol (WAP) was heralded in the late 90s, but the uptake has been disappointing. However, the rise in the penetration of PDAs and the move to the use of hypertext markup language (HTML) and extensible HTML (XHTML) for mobile Internet access, could prove vital for high-speed mobile Internet access.
Jonathan Bass, a member of the DMA mobile marketing council, comments, What will help business people is mobile Internet. It’s the software side of things that will make more B2B marketing, not hardware. A majority around 80 per cent of the UK population have slow mobile Internet access. Think of it as the old dial-up connections for PCs; 80 per cent are on this slow dial-up connection to their mobiles and the remaining 20 per cent don’t have mobile Internet at all. The future of B2B marketing is high-speed Internet access.
Unsurprisingly, Dagger at HP, comments that hardware such as the iPAQ is not at fault, but that software providers need to adapt their programs to the newer devices. The BBC and Google have recognised the need for a home-end webpage to fit the screen on a mobile device; yes there is a limited screen in this case, but it fits the device. They have recognised the huge PDA audience and have provided a site with lower-res images and a page designed to be viewed on a hand-held device. He continues that the rise of mobile devices is providing opportunities for targeting business people on the road.
To send effective marketing messages, they have to be tailored to the device. Marketers shouldn’t assume people are looking at their messages on a PC; there is a higher chance of someone opening it on the road and if it looks rubbish and has lost its formatting, it will be deleted.
However, while slow Internet connections can consequently affect marketing messages, some suggest that there are bigger issues to consider.
Sykes at Volume, comments, It’s education and awareness that’s the problem, more than the limitation of technology and software. The real issue is that the technology is out there and the experience is not.
Make the most of text
Although mobile marketing in B2B is being held back by issues with inappropriate channels, poor data and slow Internet connectivity, the medium itself does still hold promise. Text messaging has been used as a call-to-action in the consumer sector for a long time because of its immediacy, and B2B is catching on, it seems, increasingly using shortcode as a call-to-action on advertising. For example, HSBC is currently undertaking a campaign to market its business banking facilities to SMEs displaying shortcode, and Vodafone also used the technique in its recent ‘Make the most of now’ campaign, targeting business people on the move. This immediacy holds benefits for both the end-user and marketer alike, being quick and convenient for marketers to send out messages with the same benefits for end-users who wish to reply to such messages promptly.
Rampling at O2 comments, The big advantage of shortcode is that it’s easier to remember because it’s short. He continues, It doesn’t matter what field you work in, business people are highly time-pressured. Shortcode is a great mechanism because I can ping a message out, they capture the information and the connection is made, so it’s time-efficient for the end-user. Businesspeople are difficult to get hold of and are time-pressured, so it’s important to make it easy for them to respond.
The future’s bright?
B2B, it seems, is slowly but surely dipping its toes into the mobile marketing pond. While inexperience and soft/hardware compatibility issues surrounding the medium are currently cumbersome, it seems that B2B might soon take the plunge.
Ariela Freed, marketing communications manager at mobile transaction network mBlox, comments on the potential for its growth, particularly the use of text messaging. There’s an immediacy in using SMS; more than sending an email. That’s why we’ve seen the success of the mobile in the consumer world. It took a while for people to realise the Internet was a good way to get information across, but then everything does take time. Immediacy is why mobile marketing will grow in B2B.
If the problems of mobile marketing in B2B can be overcome, marketing on the move may continue to rise in significance for B2B marketers. Gradual exposure, mobile number database compilation and gathering momentum in the channel will provide a cost-effective, direct, instantaneous medium through which to contact time-pressured, information-hungry business people.
Sykes at Volume concludes, The mobile of the future will be a completely integrated device capable of handling almost any digital media. Of course mobile marketing will be embraced by the B2B sector; it has to be.
