The timing of this book couldn’t have been better.
Yes, we’ve been talking about “mobile” for a few years now, but recently Apple jumped into the fray for real, offering Apple Pay to its millions of iPhone users.
This is one of the first salvos in what will become a war for your credit card. (WalMart, CVS, and others have already fired back with their own system.) And let’s not ignore Taco Bell’s “all-in” approach, launching its own unique payment app.
The Mobile Commerce Revolution: Business Success in a Wireless World, by Tim Hayden and Tom Webster, is a deep-dive into the changing landscape of mobile business.
If you’re ready to pull together a coherent mobile strategy for your business, this book needs to be on your nightstand.
If you are scrunching your eyes together and just hoping this whole mobile thing will just go away, you need to stop reading this blog post and go one-click this book on Amazon.
The mobile revolution is well underway, and it’s not just academic. It’s affecting lives around the world:
“According to a documentary produced by Dr. Steven Shepard on some of Cisco’s efforts to bring mobile Internet to previously off-the-grid areas in Costa Rica, the results are dramatic indeed. According to Shepard, a recent study for the World Economic Forum indicated that an increase in a country’s mobile telephony penetration by 10% leads directly to a 2% increase in Gross Domestic Product (GDP), an increase in life expectancy of 15 months, and education for 600,000 children in that country.”
Be forewarned—this is no quick-read overview. You’ll want to highlight sections, dog-ear some pages, and come back to re-read certain chapters.
One of the most important observations of the book is that “mobile is a behavior, not a technology.”
Think about it. Businesses that want to reach you on your mobile device are really walking with you through your daily life. They’re coming to the restaurant, out on the soccer field sidelines, and (in some cases) into the bathroom with you. Therefore, when you design your own business mobile strategy, you absolutely must consider where, when, and how people are accessing your messages.
Mobilize Your Business: A Summary
- Look at your online presence. Ensure that your website and your content truly address the needs of the mobile visitor. This goes beyond cramming your same site down into a tiny format.
- Look at your payment systems. Remove any barriers or friction that make it more difficult for customers to give you their money, regardless of where they are.
- Look at your message channels. Review your options for outbound messages. Will SMS work? What do your emails look like?
- Look at your offline presence. Billboards, direct mail pieces, signage, and live events are all part of the mix. Inject some creativity into those traditional outlets.
- Look at every department in your company. Your mobile strategy can’t begin and end in the marketing department. Reach out across the entire organization and bring in customer service, sales, and everyone else during the planning process.
The authors do an excellent job of describing the current state of affairs, where mobile is heading, and how to address it, including an excellent chapter called “Ten Steps to Mobilize Your Business.”
Bottom line: you’d better get on this now.
