I recently participated in the SIIA webinar Mobile Essentials: Making the Business Case.
In my portion I discussed 4 topic areas to consider, and 10 rules of thumb. In this post I’ll review the 4 topics.
They are content delivery, advertising, branding and sales.
Content Delivery — consider how the consumer users your content. Does he want your material while traveling, or in the field, or on a tractor? Deliver the content when and where it’s needed, in a way that can be used, and use device features to enhance the convenience of the content.
Of course if your audience is working in an office on desktop computers, you might not need to worry so much about mobile. Don’t allow the cool kids to talk you into a big mobile program if your audience doesn’t care.
Advertising — Mobile gives you opportunities to reach new audiences, make deals with advertisers, and sometimes take advantage of higher CPMs. When you’ve got a wave, surf!
Branding — Some people think that by getting into the app store they’ll get exposure to all those millions of people who are downloading angry birds. Not really. Rather, there’s a problem with discovery in the app store — especially the Apple store, which has lousy search.
You may not get great benefits from being in the app store, but you may lose credibility if you’re not in there. It’s almost like going to an industry conference. It’s hard to decide what you get out of it, but if your company doesn’t make an appearance, people will wonder what has happened to you.
Also, some devices give you access to a different demographic. For example, there’s a certain demographic that uses Flipboard. If that demographic appeals to you, getting your content on that platform may help you reach them. Unfortunately, different platforms often limit your ability to monetize your content, so … you have to look at it from several different angles.
Sales — Getting your content onto different devices and platforms may give you up-sell and cross-sell opportunities. Some (very few) magazines are having success with “all access” up-sells. You can get print for one price, or you can add “everywhere” access for more money.
OTOH, you might just waste lots of development money building 12 different flavors of your content on devices that will be passe in two years. (Remember the Palm Pilot?)
Next, I’ll go over 10 Rules of Thumb for Publishers as they consider their mobile strategy.
This series of three posts includes …