Cast Your Mobile Net -- & Make Sure It Catches Customers

The basic principles of the Web apply to mobile, but behavior is quite different. If you're an e-commerce-based business, you want to make sales. But can you expect to transact in the same way on mobile as you do your website? Probably not.

The key is to get up and running, and up and testing, simultaneously. Similar to the Web, you'll want to try multivariate testing. That's when you test behavior on your site by switching up some of the components and observing how a visitor responds. This is generally done in the form of A/B tests where one visitor sees site A and the next sees site B. Which one gives you the desired result? Don't wait too long to make adjustments, or your customers will zip over to a competitor.

Sometimes you have to call in help, and mobile can be one of those areas. Conversion management solutions developer Maxymiser just introduced MaxMOBILE, a tool that helps companies build, test, and run their mobile sites and increase mobile marketing ROI. MaxMOBILE optimizes sites for mobile access and makes limited screen space more meaningful by tweaking site promotions, banners, registration forms, and other content on the site. The tool integrates with a website without the involvement of information technology professionals.

Your mobile site is one component of your multichannel marketing, and it's important to integrate it into your whole offering, not just treat it as a standalone platform. Bringing in someone with expertise is one way to make sure your mobile site works as part of the machine rather than as a standalone entity.