Why Mobile Search Is Irrelevant To B2B Marketing

Mobile Marketing

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By: Jon Miller

Mobile search is a hot topic these days, especially since Google AdWords is showing text ads for free on mobile phones for the next 46 days. Since I focus on helping business-to-business marketing professionals drive revenue and improve marketing accountability, I naturally got to thinking whether B2B companies could take advantage of mobile search. My conclusion: mobile search (especially mobile paid search) is basically irrelevant for most business to business marketers.

This is the topic of my monthly column at Search Engine Land. Read the entire article:
Why Mobile Search Is Irrelevant To B2B Marketing.

In the article, I explain that I’m excited about the explosive growth in mobile devices and the opportunities created for mobile marketing, especially local marketing. Even in B2B, there are exciting opportunities for mobile marketing. For example, 64% of B2B decision makers read their email on mobile devices, meaning every B2B marketer should be designing and testing their lead nurturing emails for how they work on mobile devices.

However, when it comes to mobile search, I argue that the way B2B buyers use search just doesn’t fit with how people use mobile search. My top two reasons:

• The most popular mobile searches are maps and directions, weather, and local information, followed by news, entertainment, sports, and finance — not B2B related terms.
• Even if someone were to click on a B2B pay-per-click ad on mobile device, it’s nearly impossible to capture a lead from a mobile landing page. Almost no one will go through the effort to fill out a form on their mobile device. (My tips for a B2B mobile landing page: ask only an email address, and be sure to include your phone number since mobile phones usually have “click to call” functionality.)

There are a few places where mobile search may play a role. One Marketo client suggests using mobile search to target B2B professionals who use mobile devices to search for key terms during meetings. And Chris Sherman from Search Engine Land suggests that mobile search may be relevant to target B2B professionals who have truly mobile offices, e.g sales people and delivery people.

What do you think? Does paid mobile search play a role in B2B demand generation?