Demand Gen Report just released its 2014 Content Preferences Survey. In at least one area, the survey served up a very unsurprising insight: More B2B buyers than ever before are using mobile devices to view content. Over half of today’s buyers frequently use a smartphone for this purpose, and over 40% now view content on tablets, as well.
In other words, we’re well past the point when mobile-optimized content is the price of admission for a basic content marketing strategy. It’s no longer a “nice to have” capability — it’s fundamental to the reach, effectiveness and credibility of B2B marketers. In addition, Google has started to tailor its search algorithm to promote sites with strong mobile capabilities, adding an important SEO angle to the issue.
Many organizations have successfully stayed ahead of this trend. Many others have not. That’s a problem.
I haven’t found any current statistics on mobile-optimized websites; some statistics from last year suggested that a significant number of sites still were not mobile friendly. My own experience, based on visits to a selection of B2B web sites, found a surprising number that do little or nothing to improve a mobile visitor’s experience. Others are making an effort, but they’re also committing errors such as redirecting mobile users to the wrong page or taking an excessive amount of time to load.
The problem definitely gets worse — arguably much worse — in the SMB sector, where web development budgets are often much smaller. But there are a significant number of larger B2B organizations that can’t or won’t make mobile optimization a priority.
If this issue isn’t on your radar, it’s time to make it a priority. Mobile optimization was less important a few years ago; buyers still did most of their research on bigger screens and, to be honest, the sites that did mobile well were rare enough not to make everyone else look bad. Today, just the opposite holds true: mobile plays a key role in the content mix, and sites that lag behind look absolutely terrible compared to their competitors.
