B2B Mobile Marketing: 15 Ideas You Can Use Today...

Posted by Jamie Turner on Aug 5, 2014 9:00:00 AM

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Mobile_MarketingAre you interested in learning more about B2B mobile marketing? If you’re like many people, you can think of a lot of ways B2C companies use mobile marketing. But if you work in the B2B world, then you might be stuck trying to come up with B2B mobile marketing ideas.

The good news is that B2B mobile marketing can be every bit as useful in the business marketplace as it is in the consumer marketplace.

With that in mind, I thought I’d share some of the best uses of B2B mobile marketing so that you can apply some of the ideas to your business. But before we get started, let’s recap a few mobile marketing statistics so that you can get familiar with why B2B mobile marketing is such an important tool.

Here are some statistics from a blog post on BarnRaisers.com:

  • 96% of marketers currently use or are planning to incorporate mobile into their mix
  • 85% report an intent to raise their mobile budgets in the near future
  • 84% use mobile websites; 78% mobile search; 76% mobile apps and 75% mobile display ads
  • 42% are concerned about having proper mobile metrics in place
  • 42% report an ability to prove ROI
  • Only 21% state they have been successful in mobile – a decrease from the year before

Okay, ready to get started with some ideas on how to leverage B2B mobile marketing for your company? Here goes:

  1. Create a Mobile Website. This is the foundation for all mobile marketing, so if you don’t have a mobile website yet, we’d encourage you to create one. Surprisingly, it’s not all that complex. You can either work with a firm like Mobilize Worldwide or BlueTrain Mobile both of whom specialize in creating mobile websites. Or, if you’re a do-it-yourselfer, you can read “How to Create a Mobile Website” on the 60 Second Marketer blog.
  2. Find Out How Your B2B Mobile Website Stacks Up. Marketing Grader is HubSpot’s upgrade to their Website Grader tool. Included in the tool is a mobile grader that can give you insights to how well your mobile website is performing. Another useful tool is MobileGrader from our friends at BlueTrain Mobile. Both tools are worth checking out.
  3. Generate a QR Code. QR codes won’t be around forever, but they can still be used to engage B2B audiences. Ready to create one? We have a link to a QR code generator on the bottom right-hand side of the 60 Second Marketer blog. Just click there and you’ll be taken to a website where you can create your own code.
  4. Drop a QR Code into Your Next PowerPoint Presentation. When I do keynote speeches at trade shows and corporations around the globe, I drop a QR Code into the presentation. The first person to scan the code gets an autographed copy of Go Mobile. It’s a great way to engage an audience via mobile marketing.
  5. Add a QR Code to Your Business Card. Again, QR codes won’t be around forever, but if you add them to your business cards, they can help you stand out from your competitors.
  6. Link Mobile Banner Ads to Email Campaigns. You can run a mobile banner ad that, when clicked, creates an email instead of loading a web page. So, for example, when a person clicks on a banner ad from their smartphone, an email pops up on their screen that they can forward to friends. The email might say, “Meet me at Bob’s Italian Restaurant and we’ll all get 10% off our bar tab.” For more information on this technique, check out some of the case studies on the MobClix website.
  7. Create a Mobile Banner Ad that Only Targets Certain Demographics. Did you know that you can create a mobile banner ad campaign that only targets people in airports? Or only people who have visited ESPN.com (or some other website) in the past 2 weeks? Or only people who use the Android, iOS or Microsoft operating system? Yup. It’s crazy easy to do, too. Just ask your ad agency or mobile ad network to show you how.
  8. Run a Mobile Banner Ad that Adds an Event to the Visitor’s Calendar. This is another fun trick that the folks at MobClix came up with and it works like this — someone visiting a mobile website sees a mobile banner ad on their smart phone. The banner ad is for your company and it says, “Mark Your Calendar for Our Grand Opening Event!” When the user clicks on your banner ad, the event is automatically added to their calendar. Pretty cool, eh?
  9. Create a Customized App for Your Event or Trade Show. AppMakr helped The Inc. 500 Conference create an app that enabled attendees to navigate the conference with ease. It was a great way for the event to stay connected with their audience.
  10. Launch an SMS Campaign. Only 19% of all mobile phone users in the U.S. have QR code readers on their phones, but virtually 100% of them can read texts. Launching an SMS campaign is crazy easy — but you’ll have to go through an SMS service provider like SumoText to get it going.
  11. Use SMS to Stay in Touch with Customers. Airlines, accountants and real estate agents are using SMS to remind customers about their flights, appointments and meetings. It’s a great way to stay connected and keep people happy. For more on using SMS to connect with customers, check out MobileStorm, one of the nation’s largest SMS and digital marketing service providers.
  12. Grab a Star Star Code. Remember all those people who got in early on the 1-800 craze? They grabbed numbers like 1-800-INSURANCE and sold them back to insurance companies at a premium. The same might be happening with Star Star codes which allow people to dial **INSURANCE (or something else) to connect with brands. For more on Star Star codes, click here.
  13. Integrate Your Social Media Campaigns with Mobile. Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+ and other social media platforms are all over mobile. Keep that in mind when posting updates — since people reading your social media updates might be mobile, you can encourage them to stop by your retail location with time-sensitive promotions sent out via social media.
  14. Run a Mobile Paid Search Campaign. Mobile paid search is a hidden gold mine. It’s hard to make a killing with desktop search anymore because the cost of keywords has been driven up. But the cost for mobile paid search is still low, so you can have a pretty good ROI. For more on this, read “5 Things You Need to Know Before Launching a Mobile Paid Search Campaign.”
  15. Offer a Discount for Filling Out a Survey. Interested in getting customer feedback? Then provide customers 10% off their desert once they’ve filled out a mobile survey using a tool like CheckBox.

Mobile marketing is here to stay, and whether you’re a B2C company, a B2B company, or both, you’ll want to incorporate mobile into your future marketing programs. The ideas in this blog post should get you started, but don’t stop there – there are plenty of additional tactics coming online just about every single day.

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About the author: Jamie Turner is the Founder of 60 Second Communications and co-author of “How to Make Money with Social Media” and “Go Mobile.” He is also a popular marketing speaker at events, trade shows and corporations around the globe.


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Topics: B2B Marketing, Inbound Marketing


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