For traditional media companies with legacy businesses to harvest, mobile platforms offer a critical opportunity to forward-shift toward tangible growth. At MLM SF, digital media executives and vendor partners shared a variety of actionable mobile successes that indicate that, at long last, mobile’s time has arrived.

Media can deploy effective mobile solutions to clients big and small, with different media sectors better aligned to service specific business segments. Belo VP of Digital Joe Weir noted that his local TV stations typically work upstream with larger clients that have already adopted a mobile strategy and seek richer branding opportunities. Auto dealers may sponsor a niche app, as an example, or a local builders association can fold its content into Belo’s apps while the station also assists the company in building and marketing its own mobile solution.

Tribune Media SVP of Mobile Andy Vogel amplified these mobile distinctions by explaining how different business segments value device-specific traffic. “Tablets are great engagement vehicles for big brands. The smartphone space seems to work very well with SMBs. And SMS can still be the best way to communicate with customers in a clear fashion.”

Whether it’s content sponsorships, mobile app building, or rich media tablet ads, the central idea is to leverage mobile “as a wedge to get in the door,” said Gumiyo CEO Shuki Lehavi. “That gives you the opportunity to sell across the portfolio.”
For TV stations, the portfolio sell opens up the 3-screen approach. For newspapers and other traditional media, it may be a different, more diverse product bundle. Either way, Weir urged the audience to go with a “simple sell.” And Chris Hanburger, StepLeader’s VP of business development, supported prudent product and sales strategy, but exhorted that those that are having the most success in mobile “are going gung-ho into it.”

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The “why” of SMBs going mobile is well-established. The “how” is murkier, and served as the fulcrum of a “best practices in product development” roundtable at MLM SF, with mobile developers taking different tacks in how to onboard and optimize local businesses.

MoFuse CEO Annette Tonti emphasized that they approach the market “with the belief that what’s on your desktop site doesn’t necessarily belong on your mobile site.” Meanwhile, DudaMobile CEO Itai Sadan countered that building mobile experiences for SMBs must begin and end with speed. “They just want their website to look great on any device.”

AppStack’s Steve Espinosa enriched the conversation with data that make considerations for optimizing SMB mobile experiences more sophisticated. For instance, which reviews drive more phone calls (Yelp over Google Places), and how do users interact differently with SMB sites by device?

While lots of user traffic is still aggregated in app marketplaces, WillowTree Apps CEO Tobias Dengel stressed that all businesses, large and small, need mobile websites. For starters, “create mobile user stories, then figure out the aspects of the mobile device that allow you to meet that user story.”

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As mobile usage reaches ubiquity and revenue generation becomes the much-debated next frontier, Pandora finds itself at the nexus of this movement — rapidly accelerating its mobile usage while iterating on its ad platform to monetize that base at a similar pace. At MLM SF, VP of Audio Sales Doug Sterne noted that the company is now monetizing mobile at a 4x clip compared with a year ago. To continue that growth, it is making a strong move down-market to capture local business dollars.

Pandora now employs about 150 local premise sellers across major metros, in addition to national and telesales teams. It is further expanding its local footprint through recently unveiled media reseller partnerships with newspaper and TV groups in secondary and tertiary markets.

Sterne believes that Pandora’s mobile revenue growth with businesses big and small is a byproduct of its platform, anchored in its Music Genome Project that allows listeners to build their own channels. “We’re a super-personalized experience, which positions us as a very hyperlocal strategy for an advertiser to employ.”

The company continues to expand the opportunities for brands to connect with users experientially in new ways. As an example, Sterne offered Chase, which sponsored a custom-themed music channel to introduce its rewards program to targeted listener segments.

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