The data available is usually similar: tons of traffic for a media company’s mobile platforms, but no money behind it. What can be done to get out of this narrow road to capitalizing on traffic?
Apparently, the folks at Schibsted Sweden have found a way. It has taken time, but they seem to be making good progress. At the recent WAN IFRA Congress in Cartagena, Schibsted Sweden's Frida Kvarnström, outlined her company’s successful strategy, citing three main keys to monetizing mobile.
For me the takeaway from her talk can be summed up in two areas: Real Estate Classified and Highly Local everything.
1. Local, local, local ——“First of all, we changed our strategy. We also made it local,” Kvarnström said in her talk. That meant not banking it all on big national advertising, and, instead, “We entered a new market: We looked at the small and medium sized businesses in Sweden because right now, we had a phone to allow geo-targeting.”
2. Embrace the new technology—Kvarnström said that it is important for companies to embrace new technology because new technology always leads to new opportunities.
“For us, app traffic has been the source of everything," Kvarnström said. "Our mobile traffic today is 50 to 75 percent from apps depending on which business we look into. With an app comes great technology possibilities. You cannot get that from a mobile website, you need to have an app. We work closely with our developers to try to drive even more traffic from our apps. For us, Facebook is not the best mobile channel because they go directly into our mobile web. We want native app traffic.”
3. Knowledge and empowerment--Kvarnström's third and final point was about the importance of teaching your people and having them embrace new technology.
We know that technology can be alarmingly scary to some in our audience. Leading them into the new technology slowly and through a teaching approach can be helpful, as the Schibsted Sweden case study shows.
This information comes at an appropriate time for me as I work in Manila, the Philippines this week, preparing The Philippines Inquirer to launch a total rethink in September. This week I will also address the Inquirer’s main advertisers to discuss the trends and realities of advertising in the digital era.
By the way, it is great to be back here with TheMarioBlog after a month off! Batteries are recharged. Welcome back!