ABM Executive Forum: Mobile Revenue

Last week, I was a member of a panel on B2B mobile media at the American Business Media (ABM) Executive Forum. The title of the session was "Making the case for mobile: Will the revenue ever match the hype?"

As you can see from the slides below, I'm not a fan of the question. It really doesn't matter if mobile revenue will ever match print or other digital revenue. We live in a mobile world now. If you believe that mobile is a transformative technology, you need to build a business model around it. It doesn't matter how much money you *used* to make.

The main point in my presentation was that too many publishers are tackling mobile transformation the same way they tackled digital. If your digital transformation was a failure and you are using the same strategy for mobile, can you expect the results to be different?

The answer seems obvious but too many B2B media companies are launching products the same way, staffing them the same way, and selling them the same way. Sadly, I predict we'll see the same results.

How do you win at mobile?

• Think beyond iPad apps - all of your products, emails, landing pages, etc. must work great on mobile. You can't have one good mobile product and let the rest suck.
  
• Invest in service - be ready to hold your clients hand. Help them create mobile ads and mobile optimized landing pages.
  
  
• Train your team - You can't simply add a mobile product to your media kit and expect it to sell. Your team needs to understand how it works, why it is important, and how it can help your clients and audience. It can't be an after thought on the last page of the media kit.

The full slide deck is below. Unfortunately, they may not be incredibly helpful without the voice over - but I'd welcome any feedback. You can find me on twitter: @seangriffey