Understanding and improving your marketing on mobile device

By Michael Cornnell

TRADE SHOW APP:  A Case Study

Designing your own app may seem complicated or costly, but a well-designed program can provide real practical benefits to your business. Adrienne Barker, MAS, corporate vice president for promotional product distributorship Barker Specialty Company, Cheshire, Conn., shared an example of an application designed for the company that turned out particularly well.

Looking for ways to improve and streamline its end-user tradeshows, Barker Specialty Company built an app to serve as both a mobile tradeshow directory and end-user friendly web catalog. The goals for the application were three-fold: Provide a clear and easy-to-use map of the tradeshow space, reduce catalog cost and hassle for all parties involved in the show, and make end-user and supplier interaction easier and more accurate. It also included a welcome message, Barker Specialty Company’s contact information and alert-messaging capabilities should the company want to send out any breaking messages during the show.

Barker explained that the catalog portion of the app was built from hand-selected exhibitor catalogs, screened for end-user appropriateness in terms of price and supplier contact information. The catalogs were then transferred into the app, each item inside them made individually selectable. Show attendees could go to a booth, match an item they liked to one inside the app, select it and fill out a digital lead sheet right there. The form would be e-mailed directly to Barker Specialty Company. This digital format reduced the kinds of paper transcription errors common from both clients and suppliers in the old system of filing.

Barker said the app was successful for the show and even after the event. The permanence and convenience of the application (compared to a paper guide), meant clients kept and used the application longer, allowing them to easily reference and use it after the show had ended. Orders and leads continued to come in weeks after the show ended.

Barker Specialty Company partnered with a mobile design company E-proDirect to create the app. “If we did create an app like this alone from the beginning, it would have been so expensive, and actually not necessary because E-proDirect knew what they were doing,” Barker commented. “We went with their events suite and we were able to pull it off that way, which was just perfect.”

For companies planning their own apps, Barker had some advice:

“It’s an investment. It probably was an investment of a week, about 40 hours of time,” she said. “You definitely want to have something like this if you’re going to have an event that’s going to bring at least 350 good attendees. Other than that, keep your creative hat on during the whole process and always stay one step ahead of what you’re thinking.”

Mobile Marketing. Whether you believe it's relevant  for your business now, there is no question it's going to be critical for success within the next five years. From QR codes and SMS marketing to mobile websites and custom-designed apps, there's a lot out there in the digital world that you need to understand for your business's future.

QR Codes

What they are: Short for "Quick Response codes," QR codes have a fast readability and large storage capacity compared to traditional UPC barcodes. Scannable by most phone cameras (provided the user has downloaded a reading application), the codes have become a popular marketing tool.

How to use them: Think of QR codes as a website hyperlink that you can place in the real world. Like a link online, what matters isn't that it exists, but that it delivers clear, useful content that also is interesting. Optimizing a mobile microsite landing page can help ensure readability, but also know that you don't have to link to a standard webpage. Video, phone calls, downloads, coupons and even highlights on a map can all be triggered through QR codes.

Christina "CK" Kerley, B2B marketing specialist and mobile marketing expert for New York-based CKB2B, shared an example of attention-grabbing QR code use. "Racecar driver Danica Patrick features a QR code on her racecar and her racing apparel," she said. "It links her fans to her schedule and her social network presence. ... I see her QR code as her new logo that, instead of a flat text treatment, actually transports users to deeper information and increases the bond between brand and user."

A bit of advice: Size and complexity matter. A code that is too small or contains too much information may have impaired or zero readability. Be sure to test all your codes first to make sure they are functioning properly.

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