Most B2B marketers continue to assume that mobile is primarily a consumer phenomenon. But here’s the reality: mobile is starting to influence absolutely every stage of the B2B purchasing decision, and that means marketers can no longer ignore mobile.
Consider just some of the evidence. 27 percent of all business emails are now opened on a mobile device (compared to 43 percent of all consumer emails). And according to a new Google/Millward Brown Digital survey of 3,000 B2B decision makers, 42 percent of them now use a mobile device during their B2B purchasing process. And 49 percent of the B2B decision makers who use their mobile devices for researching buying options also use their mobile device while at work – even when they have access to their desktop.
That’s on top of all the data showing how mobile has completely changed how we use the web. According to Google, 2015 was the first year when there were more mobile searches than desktop searches. In fact, Google now punishes companies that don’t have mobile-ready websites by using that as a determinant in how they show up in search results.
So, the first reason why mobile absolutely, positively has to be part of your B2B marketing mix is because it will result in a loss of organic traffic to your website if your company is not already adopting a mobile-first mentality. If people can’t find you, they can’t become customers. And if they show up at your website and can’t use the site, you’re going to see an increase in the bounce rate. In other words, they are going to show up and leave and you’ve just wasted a lead.
Another factor is engagement. As marketers know, the more engaged a customer is, the more likely he or she is to become a customer. Yet, 48 percent of B2B buyers say they experience frustration if they can’t interact easily with a company via their mobile devices. And 74 percent say that it is unlikely they would return to the website again if it is not mobile-friendly. Those numbers are from Google, as part of its study called “What Users Want Most From Mobile Sites Today.” In short, you’re going to see your engagement rates fall in half if you’re not mobile-ready.
Finally, there’s the impact of mobile on your conversion rates. If B2B buyers aren’t learning about your products via mobile, aren’t listening to your podcasts and webinars on their mobile devices, and aren’t downloading your content to their mobile devices, are they then going to turn around and buy from you?
Think of mobile from the perspective of your sales funnel. Mobile impacts the size and shape of the funnel. If shrinks the size of the opening if you have less organic traffic headed to your site. It flattens the middle of the funnel if you have less engagement. And it closes the hole at the bottom if your conversion rates are seeing a big decline.
For all those reasons, mobile needs to be a part of your B2B marketing mix. The good news is that there is still time – you can view that email open statistic as the canary in the coalmine. Right now, only 1 in 4 of your business prospects are opening your emails and email newsletters on their mobile devices – but what happens 18 months from now when that figure is 1 in 3 or 1 in 2? It’s time to think about how to adapt your B2B marketing strategy for mobile.
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Dane
Dane Cobain is a published author, freelance writer, book blogger, poet and (occasional) musician from High Wycombe, UK. Before going freelance, he worked as a social media marker, now specialising in writing about publishing, technology and marketing.