dotMobi

No Mistaking It

You've been hearing us talk about "dotMobi Thinking" for months now. The ideas behind good mobile web sites are simple but the execution isn't always so easy. Many of us are still thinking of mobile web sites as small versions of their PC-counterparts. That's simply the wrong approach. We've reviewed this and other pitfalls in mobile web marketing to produce a new, free eBook called Ten Mistakes in Mobile Web Marketing.

In addition to highlighting some traps to avoid, we've shared great examples of best site practices from some of the mobile web's biggest brands including Bank of America, Smirnoff, Virgin Atlantic, BMW and Jaguar. Keep your eyes out for more from us on that on mobiThinking.com because we're just getting started. You can stay up to date by joining our mobiThinking email list.

How small businesses are thinking really big

In case you didn't get the memo, April 21-25 is National Small Business Week in the U.S., sponsored by the Small Business Association. And while it's true that big brands with big budgets are most visibly promoting how they're using "dotMobi thinking," increasingly big numbers of small businesses are showing leadership in bringing innovative ideas to the mobile web. 

As I heard one panelist describe it at ad:tech last week, the mobile Internet is the "connective tissue" of our technology-driven and busy lives -- keeping us in tune with with the vital functions we need to thrive both personally and professionally. It's no wonder it's forecasted half the world's mobile phone subscribers will be browsing the web in just three years (Informa 2007) ... and 85% of iPhone users already do so. Now is the time for any business owner or marketer to seize the day.

The best mobile web sites acknowledge that we want utility -- usefulness -- out of our mobile web experiences that bring convenience to how we manage our day-to-day lives. Small conveniences immediately translate to customer satisfaction, and that means increased loyalty, and deeper & richer customer relationships. We all know it's far more efficient to keep a customer than to acquire a new one. And in this economic climate, retention needs to be foremost in any marketer's mind -- especially for small businesses who need to be even more judicious with their marketing spend.

And many small businesses are using "dotmobi thinking" to deliver satisfaction to their customers by providing utility - in simple and small ways that just make sense. For example, Heritage Texas Properties in Houston offers a mobile web site for out-and-about prospective property buyers. Accessing their site from your mobile device, you can view Houston listings, get contact information for any of their offices or agents, review local city information like news, weather and dining, and even calculate your estimated mortgage using their mobile-friendly calculator. When someone is in a car and viewing property, these kinds of simple features and useful applications really deliver.

Restaurants are also making small steps towards delivering great experiences. Nottingham's Restaurant & Tavern in popular ski resort Big Bear Lake, California uses their mobile web site to offer hours of operation, the menu, directions from local areas, a calendar of upcoming musical events and a quick link to call them; after all, a phone makes calls, too.  Nottingham's has obviously thought about what their customers want to access while in a boat on the lake, on the chair lift or strolling through town. The content is straightforward, but it's sure to result in lasting relationships with customers.

Both sites also use some best practices from both a technical and marketing perspective. First, they each score a perfect 5 out of 5 on http://ready.mobi for mobile performance, simply meaning the sites will work well on most phones. Second, they each advertise their respective.mobi sites on their desktop web sites! After all, how are your customers going to know you have a mobile web site if you don't tell them? It's important to differentiate yourself as a small business and show you provide this added convenience.

If you have a small business and are ready to establish a mobile web site, I have five tips to get you started:

Do you have the time for .mobi thinking?

I recently read a blog asking if a .mobi domain name is really needed and if we're somehow "splitting the internet." It got me thinking how deeply entrenched some are in ".com thinking" and how this just might be the perfect time to start using ".mobi thinking."

The basics of good marketing are no more sophisticated than recognizing your customers’ needs, delivering relevant goods and services, and using smart communications to build a relationship, thereby creating loyalty and repeat business.

So when BMW markets its cars to Irish drivers, it offers right-hand-drive vehicles, provides brochures in English in its Irish showrooms and delivers a portal at http://bmw.ie, providing localized car and dealer information. Likewise in Spain, the cars are left-hand-drive and their portal at http://bmw.es offers Spanish content. BMW recognizes the unique needs and languages in these individual markets and responds accordingly.

A good mobile web site similarly acknowledges the mobile population has a unique set of needs and -- in a sense -- speaks a different language. Mobile customers place higher value on convenience, speed and utility. A great mobile site targets those needs with agile content and uses a communications strategy that differentiates itself from its fixed-internet counterpart. This is the core of ".mobi thinking."

So while BMW markets its cars to its mobile customers, its mobile site at bmw.mobi offers quick links to view images of all its models, downloads for ringtones and wallpapers, and a contact number that’s linked so I can easily call it from my mobile phone since -- after all -- a phone can actually make calls.

What a Great Thing

We’ve always been big fans of zagat.mobi and now there’s a 30-second reason why we just love it.

Apple recently launched its "The Great Thing" TV commercial featuring some of the great things you can do with the Internet in your pocket. Featured along with viewing a trail map at a ski resort and changing your flight, is finding a good place to eat on Zagat.mobi.

The site looks really sharp within the iPhone and not to be ignored is the fact that the spot very clearly displays "zagat.mobi" in the address bar.

Take a look at the ad:

Like we said we months ago, we think the iPhone is simply awesome -- mostly because unlike anything else before, it has people talking about the mobile web. One year ago most people wouldn’t know mobile web from WiFi but now it’s becoming part of everyday parlance thanks to that little touch screen you can pinch and grab.

And what about some of the cynics that said .mobi had no place in an iPhone world? I love pointing to zagat.mobi as the perfect example of how even great technology cannot replace customer-focused thinking and smart branding. If you’ve had the pleasure of using the zagat.mobi site, you’ll know it’s not a shrunken-down, miniature version of its .com counterpart. It has unique attributes, content, and layout that cater to my specific needs while using a mobile phone. For example, the phone numbers are hyperlinked so I can directly call the restaurant and book a table. And when using it from the iPhone, it knows where I am and provides a map and directions. Now this is giving the people what they want!

And having a .mobi domain is like having bragging rights to say "Yes, I get the mobile web! I'm about to give you a very cool experience that's different from what you get at your PC." Now, thanks to these 30 seconds, millions of people are hearing that message from zagat.mobi.

Speaking of spreading the word ...

Something's in the Air

I don’t know why these things always come in waves, but I've seen a small hangerful of .mobi airline sites go live over the past week or so. KLM.mobi is live. Aerlingus.mobi is now live (and I'm happy about that even if there's an "aerlingus.com" on the mobile home page.) airfrance.mobi is up but it's currently redirecting to another mobile address and doesn't seem to be redirecting consistently yet.

In the US only, Virgin Atlantic -- one of my personal heroes of an airline -- has launched the stylish lovefromabove.mobi, a promotional web site for a series of Virgin Atlantic events going on in Chicago and NYC.

And speaking of travel ... dotMobi is hitting the road hard next week. Part of the crew is heading to the next ICANN meeting in New Delhi, which marks dotMobi's first formal visit to India. And some of us will be at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. We're working with the dotMobi Advisory Group at a booth in Hall 7 (7H49). If you're attending, please stop by and let us know what cool .mobi sites you've been working on.

A little late but still pretty cool ...

Around the December holidays, ZAGAT released a short film about the company's adding shopping information to ZAGAT.mobi. And even though it's a little late, I thought you'd be interested in seeing it:

By the way, you'll see Russell Kern from Maxim magzine in the clip, talking about maxim.com. What he doesn't mention in the clip is that there is a very good maxim.mobi site as well.

Since everybody likes visuals ...

... here are a couple of screen captures for some current .mobi-related media activity.

First a shot of the Disney Channel TV commerical for hsm2.mobi:

 

And here's a shot from the August 20, 2007, CNET TV segment on zagat.mobi.

Don't be shy about letting us know if you see .mobi advertising elsewhere.

America's New Teen Heartthrob is Mobile

Sometimes dotMobi is way ahead on brand launches -- for example, there's a well-known .com wine site going .mobi very soon that will cool -- but other times, news comes in over the transom (or, in this case, as a comment to this blog).

Anthony wrote in via a comment to ask, "Can you please share with us more about the launch of Disney's High School Musical .mobi website....HSM2.mobi ....there is a commercial running on tv for HSM2.mobi."

It's true!

Ladies and Gentlemen, meet the High Scool Musical 2 .mobi site: hsm2.mobi.

In case you aren't part of the teen set, High School Musical 2, which premiered on US cable a couple of weeks ago, has made instant superstars out of Zac Efron (the teen heartthrob I mentioned in the title of this post) and Vanessa Hudgens. (And they're so cute together that they've become "Zanessa"). The soundtrack the #1 album in the US, and the movie is in the process of premiering all around the globe. If you don't know it yet, you will.

The best part about this site is that it's from Disney. That Disney. That mobile operator Disney. I knew we'd eventually see .mobi sites from Disney, but I'm thrilled that it's this soon and tied to one of their biggest properties of the moment.

From a technical perspective ...

Another day, another cool site ...

zagat.mobi launched today. One of the mobile content categories I've been hoping to see a lot more of -- restaurants  -- is finally here. Even cooler is that they're testing the mobile marketing waters with Visa Signature aboard for an exclusive two-month mobile advertising flight. This will be an interesting case to watch for mobile advertising acceptance since the Zagat information is already well-tailored to a mobile context. And to bring together a couple of trends we've discussed over the past few months, here's a photo of the site on an iPhone:
   

Straight from Belgium ...

The team at Belgian-based train service Thalys have been heavily promoting their thalys.mobi site with some very nice poster advertising in train stations around Europe. This is a shot from the very busy Gare du Nord in Paris. The text says, "All of Thalys on your mobile."

I've also been seeing some cool sites like Paramount.mobi (the movie studio), time.mobi (as in Time magazine), wnba.mobi (basketball), thesun.mobi (the UK newspaper, famous for the "page 3 girl"), blackhawk.mobi (cigarettes) and usanetwork.mobi (US television channel).