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.

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.

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.

The best mobile websites.

The mobile awesomeness blog has taken the work out of finding the internet’s best mobile websites.

If you’re looking for mobile website design inspiration, look no further than this blog.

Learn from the experts.

People often have a tough time being brief. So, it can be difficult to convince management to cut things out when you’re planning content for your mobile website.

If you need help with your argument, it’s best to rely on the world’s top usability expert who suggests that being brief is necessary for a great mobile website experience.

Bigger than the iPhone.

Too often we only think about the iPhone when we think mobile. The world is a big place and the iPhone only makes up about 20% of the smartphone market.

This simple presentation will give you an idea of why companies need a strategy for reaching every mobile device, not just the iPhone. 235k viewers on Slideshare over the past year seem to agree.

Two new studies were released last month which demonstrate how quickly mobile recruiting is growing. The job search website beyond.com conducted a survey and reported that 77% of US job seekers are now using mobile apps to search for jobs.

Candidates want to use mobile recruiting apps because they can quickly search for and respond to new job openings without being tied to their computers.

The survey also noted that with more workers bringing their own mobile devices into the workplace, the ability to discreetly search for new jobs while at the office is especially enticing for candidates.

Recruiting researcher Potentialpark then produced a complementary study which focuses on understanding what job actions candidates want to perform from their mobile devices.

Candidates reported that they are primarily interested in searching for jobs and receiving alerts on their phones when new jobs are posted.

30 second case study.

Orange Telecom has created iPhone and Android apps to help job seekers. According to their press release, the Orange Jobs app has been downloaded more than 26,000 times and there are 2,000 new downloads every month.

Orange’s app is unique because they’ve found a way to keep people coming back to the app. Orange has 11,000 active app users who return to the app at least once a month to view new job openings.

The main draw for candidates is the ability to search for jobs but Orange has also built a subscription feature into the app. If candidates don’t find the right job from their search, they can setup a push notification or email alert.

When a new job posting appears which fits the candidate’s skills, the app responds by sending the candidate a notification on their phone which asks them to apply for the position.

Check out the app on the iTunes store or Android Market.

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All marketing activities should be measurable

It’s odd to think that new initiatives are often the most under measured activities. New marketing channels are often deemed experimental and measurement methodologies are in their early stages. Emphasis is typically placed on figuring out what to measure rather than benchmarking and forecasting performance.

Over the past two years, this exploratory attitude is the one we’ve seen most often with branded apps. Companies have relied heavily on download numbers as the key indicator of a project’s success with very little mention of usage trends.

We outlined in a previous post why there’s a logistical reason for this situation. App analytics is uncharted territory and many agencies still haven’t figured out how to collect the data your marketing department needs. As a result, analytics integration is often the first feature to get removed during the planning stages of an app.

Learning from other opt-in channels

The challenge with not having usage data is that you’re only seeing a small part of the app story. App downloads give you an understanding of the level of interest people have in the app’s topic (i.e. people interested in Mergers and Acquisitions news) but the download number falls far short of describing why people find the app valuable.

Consider the comparison to email marketing for a moment. Using only download numbers for measuring is like talking about the size of your list without paying any attention to open and click through rates. When you send a marketing email, you like to know how many people your email is going out but what you’re likely more interested in is who is opening the email and sharing it with their colleagues.

So how should I measure my apps?
A lack of measurement for apps has led to claims like “it’s a well known fact that apps are downloaded and only used once” but the truth is that the usage of most branded apps hasn’t been measured well enough for that to be a valid claim.

Our own data contradicts this assertion. We’ve found that 90% of visitors to a particular app come back at least twice after downloading and more than 50% of visitors come back to the app at least once a month.

To better understand branded apps as an opt-in channel, we need to continue measuring more app initiatives from a variety of industries. We need to see more use cases measuring things like depth of visit, frequency of visit, time on site and pages per visit so we can continue comparing app metrics in the context of permission based marketing.

Apps are an important part of the mobile channel, helping companies to develop brand loyalty through repeat visits to the app but most organizations are recognizing the need for a mobile version of their website as well. The mobile website is what visitors see when they type www.yourcompanyname.com into the browser, click through from an email newsletter or find your company on google.

Mobile website visitors are in a hurry, looking for a specific piece of information so the construction of a mobile website requires a different layout and strategy when compared to your main website. Brands have responded by creating websites specifically formatted for phones so visitors can easily find what they’re looking for.

Mobile websites are quickly becoming standard, even Google has noted that having a mobile website will play a role in page rankings moving forward. As companies update their websites, they’re finding it necessary to include mobile versions. For today we’ve looked at how many Am Law 200 legal firms have launched mobile websites for our sample but the same trend is being mirrored in many different industries.

Below is a full list of the twenty-five Am Law 200 firms with mobile websites, in no particular order. Go to any of their websites from your phone and you should be automatically re-directed to a mobile version of the website.

Law firms with a mobile website include:

Baker McKenzie, Wilmer Hale, Ropes & Gray, Paul Weiss, Fried Frank, Perkins Coie, Paul Hastings, Kaye Scholer, Shook, Hardy & Bacon, Blank Rome, Faegre Benson, Haynes & Boone, Schulte Roth & Zabel, Sutherland, Quinn Emanuel, Kramer Levin Naftalis Frankel, Stoel Rives, Baker & Daniels, Williams & Mullen, Loeb & Loeb, Adams and Reese, Armstrong Teasdale, Curtis, Mallet-Prevost, Colt & Mosle, Best Best & Krieger, Herrick, Feinstein LLP.

With eight firms launching their mobile websites in the month of September, it will be interesting to see how this trend continues to grow into 2012.

Over the last year, mobile marketing in law firms has grown at an incredible rate. There are now 27 of the Global 100 law firms which have launched a mobile presence. The adoption of mobile marketing by law firms is growing quickly as most professionals now carry a smartphone at all times. People are increasingly using mobile devices to communicate and stay up to date on important information while away from their desks. Norton Rose is capitalizing on this trend by making important information available on three unique mobile platforms.

“We go where our clients go. Many are mobile and the number is growing fast,” says Lise Monette, Chief Marketing Officer at Norton Rose in Canada. “Our apps will help us serve clients even better by delivering high-quality content to their mobile devices. We want them to connect with us quickly and easily, wherever they may be.”

Norton Rose Group is one of the first UK firms to launch iPhone and Blackberry apps focused on helping their clients to stay on top of what’s happening in their industries. To stay on top of the latest information, both mobile apps contain push notifications which are used to alert app users when new content is available.

Norton Rose Group is also launching English and French language mobile websites powered by Panvista’s mobile platform (available at http://m.nortonrose.com). The mobile websites are focused on giving the Group’s international clients and employees quick access to the firm’s directory and office locations. “When people come to your website on their phone, they’re usually looking for a specific piece of information.” said John Robinson VP Marketing and Strategy at Panvista. “Visitors will have the best brand experience when they can find what they’re looking for quickly. The Norton Rose Group’s new mobile presence will help them to deliver an excellent user experience to their clients on any mobile device.”

About Panvista Media

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.

The company specializes in launching mobile websites and apps for clients with global audiences. 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.

About Norton Rose Group

Norton Rose Group, is a leading international legal practice offering a full business law service to many of the world’s pre-eminent financial institutions and corporations from offices in Europe, Asia Pacific, Canada, Africa and the Middle East.

The Group’s lawyers share industry knowledge and sector expertise across borders to support clients anywhere in the world. The Group is strong in financial institutions; energy; infrastructure, mining and commodities; transport; technology and innovation; and pharmaceuticals and life sciences.

Norton Rose Group has more than 2600 lawyers operating from 39 offices in Abu Dhabi, Amsterdam, Athens, Bahrain, Bangkok, Beijing, Brisbane, Brussels, Calgary, Canberra, Cape Town, Dubai, Durban, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Hong Kong, Johannesburg, London, Melbourne, Milan, Montréal, Moscow, Munich, Ottawa, Paris, Perth, Piraeus, Prague, Québec, Rome, Shanghai, Singapore, Sydney, Tokyo, Toronto and Warsaw; and from associate offices in Dar es Salaam, Ho Chi Minh City and Jakarta.

Norton Rose Group comprises Norton Rose LLP, Norton Rose Australia, Norton Rose OR LLP, Norton Rose South Africa (incorporated as Deneys Reitz Inc), and their respective affiliates.

The mobile website is focused on providing MaRS clients with convenient access to popular information from the MaRS desktop website such as the MaRS’ blog and events listings. The mobile website was designed to deliver a quality user experiences for individual devices like the iPhone, Android and Blackberry. By using different layouts for each device, the technology is able to account for the variety of interaction styles used by mobile website visitors.

The content found in MaRS’ iPhone application provides extended educational material which is needed for the entrepreneur’s on the go. Individuals who download the app have access to MaRS’ Enterpreneurship 101 video series, the Entrepreneurship Toolkit article database as well as the MaRS funding database.

Panvista’s technology allowed MaRS to move from the app concept to their launch in the app store in a very short time with the additional flexibility to change their mobile website and app content structures, layouts and themes in real-time.

“The best mobile strategies are those that test, measure and tailor content for different mobile user experiences,” said John Robinson, VP Marketing and Strategy at Panvista Media. “MaRS has a great mobile strategy in place. They are using their mobile website to provide visitors with quick access to one time reference information like event listings and office locations. Their app on the other hand is focused on providing deeper educational information which will create return visitors, helping to grow the MaRS brand.”

ABOUT PANVISTA
Panvista’s mCMS technology provides companies with the tools and infrastructure needed to create great user experiences across every mobile device.

Major professional services brands in North America and Europe use Panvista’s mobile platform to build powerful mobile websites and apps which distribute important information to internal and external audiences.

ABOUT MaRS
MaRS Discovery District is a large scale, mission driven innovation centre located in Toronto and networked across Ontario, focused on building Canada’s next generation of technology companies. MaRS works closely with entrepreneurs to grow and scale their ventures into global market leaders in life sciences and health care, information, communications and entertainment technologies, cleantech, advanced materials and engineering, as well as innovative social purpose businesses.

ABOUT ONTARIO NETWORK OF EXCELLENCE
The Ontario Network of Excellence (ONE) is a collaborative network of organizations across Ontario, designed to help you commercialize your ideas.

Whether you are an innovator, a technology-based business, entrepreneur, or researcher, ONE connects you with services and programs to help you innovate and gain a competitive advantage.

Many of these issues faced by first time branded apps are simple problems which can be fixed with proper planning. In this post, we’ll take a look at the two most common issues we see with branded app launches so hopefully you can avoid these problems.

Give yourself the tools to measure your success.
We recently wrote about the trend in app marketing of companies using downloads as the sole success metric for app initiatives. After digging deeper, we came to the realization that many companies simply do not have access to proper analytics for their apps.

Many development companies will not raise the issue of analytics tracking because it takes them too much time to perfect the integration. Analytics is something which isn’t seen by the end user and unfortunately for companies on a budget, the integration seems to be the first thing to get removed from the features list.

However, not having app analytics is a huge mistake. Marketers need to have the tools to measure app performance, otherwise you lose the ability to understand how you can improve the app’s content and experience to better serve your audience. If budget is a concern, consider removing one of the more complex features from the app so you can get the tracking information you need.

Create a plan for keeping the app content fresh.
The most successful branded apps are those which add value to a customer’s life. Keeping the app updated with new and interesting information will ensure that people have a reason to come back.

I recently read a review of the Claritin Pollen Alert iPhone app. The first review complained that the pollen alert, the main function of the app, never changed in the two months that the user had the app. As a result, users found it was easier to go back to the Weather network website to find the information they needed.

These poor user experiences can be avoided by planning for automated content refreshes either by using RSS feeds, automated CSV imports or direct API hooks. What really bugs me is when I see “content update” included in the notes of an app upgrade. An app should automatically check for new information every time a visitor opens the app so make sure to ask your development company how this will happen.

Hopefully planning for these two issues will help your first branded app to be a success.