I recently received an email from a professional services marketer who has a great idea for an app. It’s highly targeted at a specific practice area and will offer valuable content to downloaders, allowing the apps to attract repeat visitors. However, with so many different smartphone and tablet platforms on the market today and the firm only having a limited budget for the project, their team was having trouble deciding which platform to launch their app on. Panvista has had experience launching apps for a variety of firms, large and small, in the professional services space so I tried to give them an idea of what we’ve learned.

Blackberry is still king in the enterprise.

For projects where we’ve launched apps on both iPhone and Blackberry, the Blackberry app has had far more downloads than the iPhone. This may be counter intuitive for avid iPhone and Android users but the sheer volume of Blackberries in the enterprise make it the largest audience. As a bonus, we’re also seeing most users upgrade to devices OS 5.0 and above (new Torches, Curves and Bolds) and as a result, we’re seeing more interest in downloading apps. From a recent look at our statistics we found that older Blackberries (2+ years old) now account for less than 1% of downloads.

The one downside with Blackberry is push notifications are more limited than they are on iOS or Android. Notifications appear as a small icon with a number next to it like the unread email icon on the start screen of your Blackberry. While it’s a great branding opportunity to get your firm’s logo on your client’s home screen, it often provides less value than iOS or Android notifications which appear as a string of text on the client’s lock screen.

The iPad offers a completely new content experience.

The second platform which is taking off is iPad. The iPad is a much more “lean back” experience than any smartphone, which people use in quick intervals when they have a moment of down time. People pick up their iPads when they have more time to consume information. While they may open an alert email from their desktop computer, they’ll be more likely to actually click through and read the publication from their iPad.

For adoption, Apple has now sold 15 million iPads. Many IT departments are running pilot projects with partners inside their firms and we’re also seeing a lot of senior executives purchase these devices on their own and bring them into the office. The iPad is the dominant tablet in the market so if you want to reach the largest tablet audience, the iPad should be your main concern.

Many workers now carry two phones.

Finally, the last two devices we’re seeing success with are iPhone and then Android. There are a lot of information workers using two devices these days, a Blackberry for work and then an iPhone or Android device for personal use so supporting either of these platforms will also reach a large professional audience.

Many firms have chosen to target these devices first because they’re the easiest to develop for. App designs are typically more graphically pleasing on these devices than comparison Blackberry apps which is also a drawing factor.

Launch strategically and test thoroughly.

When your firm is looking to launch a mobile app, considering who will be the exact audience is important. In professional services, Blackberry is still the primary device carried but the iPad has a unique use case and more workers are carrying iPhone and Android devices for personal use. If you only have a limited budget, pick one of these platforms and measure every part of your initiative so you can demonstrate success and get buy in to launch on more platforms.

Toronto, Ontario – Panvista Corp., a leading provider of mobile application software for businesses, today announced that Womble Carlyle, a prominent Am Law 200 firm, has launched smartphone apps for the Blackberry and iPhone powered by Panvista’s mobile platform.

Mobile marketing is quickly maturing in the legal sector as marketers begin to understand the power of a communication channel which is always on and always connected. Smartphone penetration amongst the legal audience, predominantly made up of general counsels, is close to one hundred percent. Womble Carlyle is taking advantage of this high level of Smartphone usage by providing their audience with valuable information, like blogs and alerts, through their branded apps.

Womble Carlyle’s apps are leading a new trend in legal mobile marketing, focusing their apps on a specific practice team rather than launching firm wide apps. By concentrating their efforts around the firm’s digital media practice team, the apps are able to deliver a highly relevant content experience to downloaders.

Womble Carlyle has also integrated push notification technology into the apps, which notifies downloaders whenever a new alert or blog post is published. Instead of relying on alert emails to stand out in already crowded email inboxes, these notifications ensure that Womble Carlyle is positioned as the primary source of information for people interested in the Digital Media practice.

“Receiving too much email is a problem we all suffer from, which makes it difficult for marketers to get important information noticed in the inbox” notes John Robinson, VP Marketing and Strategy at Panvista. “By delivering alerts using push notifications, Womble Carlyle has positioned themselves to be the first firm people hear from when important things happen in the Digital Media practice area.”

About Panvista

Panvista offers a fully supported mobile marketing platform which has helped many of the world’s largest law firms to provide their clients with convenient access to valuable legal resources on their smartphones.

Panvista’s mobile platform has helped these firms to increase readership for client alerts and provide clients with quick access to important reference information while on the go. Firms have been drawn to Panvista’s technology because it works on any smartphone or tablet, is tracked using the best analytics and everything is managed from one simple web based interface.

About Womble Carlyle

Womble Carlyle is a full-service business law firm with a focus on innovative solutions to client needs. The firm supports the Association of Corporate Counsel in the ACC Value Challenge, which seeks to better align legal services with the needs of corporate clients.

The firm serves clients nationally and globally with more than 550 attorneys in thirteen offices: Atlanta; Charleston and Greenville, S.C.; Charlotte, Greensboro, Raleigh, Research Triangle Park, and Winston-Salem, N.C.; Silicon Valley, Calif., Washington, D.C.; Tysons Corner, Va.; Baltimore; and Wilmington, Del.

In the community, the firm is the first law firm to receive the Thurgood Marshall College Fund Corporate Leadership Award as well as the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve Freedom Award.

I’ve been reading a lot of 2012 B2B marketing predictions lately and I love seeing how frequently marketers are mentioning the rise of mobile marketing. However, the term “mobile marketing” is still being used to encompass too many elements which makes it difficult for people to understand how all the different components can be used. Mobile marketing is still maturing but here are the four elements we’ve found that B2B marketers should be focusing on to be successful in the mobile channel.

1. Mobile Website: A mobile website should be the first step any company takes in the mobile space. Mobile visitors are in a rush, looking for a very specific piece of information like an office location or phone number. Google has recognized people’s preference for good mobile experiences by stating that they’ve begun ranking pages with mobile versions higher in search so if you want to get found, you need a mobile website.

2. QR Codes: Until you have #1 sorted out, don’t bother with QR codes. Many marketers make the mistake of using QR codes to link to desktop websites which is frustrating for customers. Your prospect has taken the time to take their phone out, open their QR reader app and visit the page you link to. If they can’t quickly determine the value of your offer, they’ll abandon your landing page so think carefully about what you want prospects to do after they’ve shot your QR code.

3. Mobile App: In B2B mobile marketing, apps are useful tools for helping prospects access your sales resources in one convenient place. Apps are completely opt-in, they provide you with more information about customers than any other channel and push notifications have higher open rates than companion email marketing campaigns.

4. SMS messaging: I still haven’t found a really good use case for SMS in B2B mobile marketing. Text messaging is an incredibly personal channel but it can be useful. If you’re going to use SMS messages, make sure they’re extremely targeted, offer amazing value and provide some easy way for people to unsubscribe.

The email and social media channels are also both inherently mobile because people check these channels from their phones but for the most part, there’s not much extra work needed to optimize these presences for mobile.

Mobile provides marketers with the ability to find out more about customers than any other channel. When combined with marketing automation, the mobile channel gives you the power to target customers with perfectly contextual marketing messages as they move through your sales cycle. Learn to use these 4 mobile elements effectively and you’ll quickly start seeing results from the mobile channel.