Tips for Developing a Successful Mobile Publishing Strategy

By Jim Sturdivant

6 Mobile Tips from the Publishing Business Virtual Conference & Expo

This year’s Publishing Business Virtual Conference & Expo, held live Sept. 16 and now available on-demand (until Dec. 20), included the session, “Book Publishers and the Mobile Era: Are You Missing the Mobile Opportunity?” Featuring a panel of top publishing executives, the session addressed how book publishers can utilize mobile to enhance content, provide additional content to readers, as well as generate additional revenue streams.

Here are six tips from those panelists on breaking into the mobile publishing space. To access the entire session, as well as others from the virtual show, on-demand, visit http://bit.ly/PBV2010.

From Chuck Martin, director, Center for Media Research, MediaPost, and CEO, Mobile Future Institute

1. Experiment and learn. “Do something; don’t do nothing. Test it with one book, test it with two books, and see what you find out,” said Martin.

2. Measure and analyze. According to Martin, “The mobile platform is the ultimate measurement medium,” as user participation is traceable, including by time and location. For example, with certain scannable two-dimensional barcodes (such as those placed on printed books), “… you can tell where in the country someone is actually scanning your book …, and then look at what your marketing plan is based on that information,” he said.

3. Research and focus on platforms that are optimal for your intended audience. For example, “Android users tend to be younger and not necessarily as affluent. … If you’re doing books for teenagers, you’re likely to be more successful with an Android-type platform,” said Martin. “If you’re doing books for people who are more affluent, you’re more likely to be successful with an Apple platform. The Apple users have a totally different profile in terms of what they do with their phones.”

4. Do not disregard utilizing simple text or multimedia messaging service (MMS). With these services, “you can reach 200 million phones in the United States. That’s what a lot of companies are doing, and in terms of reach, it’s really where your customers are,” said Martin. “While everybody has a [cell] phone, not everybody has a smartphone. Of those who have a smartphone, a percentage don’t use any apps on the phone, by the way, even though they have [access to] apps.”

From John Barker, director, strategic product design, Wolters Kluwer

5. When developing an app, pay careful attention to your customers’ needs. For example, ask yourself questions such as, “What is the intended outcome? Should it be a free application, or is it an application someone is going to pay a lot of money for?”

From Judith Curr, executive vice president and publisher, Atria Books and Washington Square Press

6. Start with a small investment of time and resources. “Pick a certain bit of technology which is easy … to use and incorporate into [your] daily activities without having to spend a lot of money or retool everything,” said Curr, who mentioned Microsoft Tag—“a two-dimensional barcode technology that acts as a pathway that leads any physical product to any virtual element, such as videos, websites or chapter excerpts”—as an easy-to-use technology.

With the expansion of the smartphone market, mobile seems poised to fulfill its promise as the next great frontier in publishing. Whether that primarily means new marketing opportunities or new avenues for monetizing content may depend on the specifics of one's publishing market, but what seems certain is that this new medium—with its unprecedented interactivity, accessibility and, yes, mobility—cannot be ignored.

"The combination of ubiquitous, cheap computing and massive adoption of mobile devices is providing publishers with a dream scenario," says Dani Essindi Behrendt of mobile technology company Ricoh Innovations. "Publishers can finally develop a direct relationship with their readers, thus creating brand experiences around content."

The following tips, coming from a range of publishing perspectives, offer numerous ideas for connecting with readers and conceiving of mobile as a long-term investment.

Tips From … Colleen O'Connell, director of online marketing,  HarperCollins Children's Books

HarperCollins has proven a leader in using mobile to market books, making a splash over a year ago by being one of the first U.S. publishers to use QR Codes in book promotion. (QR Codes are two-dimensional bar codes—placed on printed materials such as book covers—that are readable by mobile phones, and used to connect print readers to digital content.)

1. Mobile devices: More than just "another screen."

Content and marketing programs designed for mobile must reflect the medium's distinct characteristics. "You can't just take what you have on a website and automatically put it on this mobile screen," O'Connell says. "It does not work like that." Consider the screen size, the demographic you are trying to reach, and the types of phones [that demographic typically] owns, she says, and design content accordingly.

2. Don't just think smartphone.

They may get all the buzz, but it's likely that a significant percentage of your audience still does not carry a smartphone, O'Connell says. When designing campaigns for teens, Harper Children's offers high-resolution versions of mobile content optimized for smartphones and lower-res versions that "take all the content and displays it in a different way for [non-smartphones]." Whatever the format, start with what you are sure works, she says. "You can always optimize and add to it later."

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