Mobile strategy for a business is not one of those things that you can cover extensively in one post, but I figured I could at least give you a primer on some of the things that you will need to think through when creating it.

With everyone jumping onto the mobile apps bandwagon, the decision makers will be forgiven for being clueless about where to begin or even what would provide best fit for their operations given that agencies are also not doing a good job of education.

Many are just getting to realize the impact of web and the mobile story may be a bit too heavy to digest. As the year comes to a close and we begin to strategize for the coming year for our business operations and looking at how to connect in more meaningful ways with our consumers, mobile needs to form a key component of digital strategy.

In the same way that the web ecosystem evolved, you may want to take baby steps to discover what mix works best for you as well as ease into the whole environment. This process includes looking to see if mobile is necessary in your customer experience and what assets are available for mobile consumption – think product information, alerts etc.

Perhaps the mobile strategy will be inward facing, looking to improve certain parts of your internal business. Strategy goes deeper than application and, mobisite deployments and has to link back to deliverables that impact your bottom-line in one way or another.

Mobile presents an additional challenge that web did not have to grapple with; that of fragmentation and multiple development options. With a myriad of devices with varied capabilities; operating systems and application stores you need to figure out where your consumers lie and build for their capabilities. For example, there is no point building a consumer experience on the Iphone if your audience is primarily on Symbian powered devices. A bit of research would put you in good stead to avoid burning capital on solutions that will not deliver results. You may choose to wean your client base on your mobile engagements by first providing an information experience and gradually introducing new features and finally going transactional.

Now that you have figured out your audience and mode of engagement, you need to build the experience. Your best bet on this is to work with a competent mobile agency that understands mobile in all its forms. Having an in-house team may sound like a good idea but my suggestion is that you focus on your core business and have an agency come in and learn your objectives and translate that into the final product. This helps avoid obvious pitfalls that come from the steep learning curve that you would undergo.

Next, you need to get your mobile experience; to your target audience. There are numerous ways that this can happen from use of traditional media, mobile advertising, riding on inventory if dealing in physical products, QR codes and physical activations.

Finally, measure results periodically; compare them to targets set earlier and adjust expectation or execution accordingly.

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If you need deeper insights or are currently working on your mobile strategy or are thinking of doing so in the future, drop me a line. My team and I will be happy to get in-touch. In Q1 of 2012 we {at Symbiotic } are introducing mobile boot camps for executives and boards that want to better understand the mobile ecosystem and how their brands can benefit.

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