The first, most overarching trend for B2B mobile marketing in 2016 is that mobile’s role in the workplace will continue to grow. Mobile is a key contributor to the ever-blurrier lines between work time and personal time, giving B2B marketers a growing number of reasons why they should be working harder to reach mobile audiences.
In 2014, the average nonvoice time US adults spent on mobile devices surpassed that of desktops and laptops for the first time, and growth will continue for the next several years, eMarketer estimates. By 2017, US adults will spend more than 1 hour per day using their mobile device than they will on their desktop or laptop, as explored in the new eMarketer report “Six B2B Mobile Marketing Trends for 2016: With a More Mobile Workplace, Budgets and Tactics Must Follow.”
Of course, it’s likely that target audiences for certain B2B marketers spend a lot more time on a traditional PC than 2 hours per day. It’s important to note that these are averages across the entire US population, not just those in the workplace who spend the majority of their day in front of a computer. But it’s also likely true that even for people who use their PC frequently, time spent using smartphones and tablets continues to increase.
Social and search platforms are also reaching mobile tipping points. LinkedIn reported in its Q3 2015 financial results that 55% of all its traffic came from mobile. In May 2015, Google reported that in at least 10 countries, including the US and Japan, more than half of searches on its platform were conducted via mobile devices.
Average Time Spent per Day with Major Media by US Adults, 2012-2017 (hrs:mins and CAGR)
In addition, eMarketer estimates that by the end of next year, 55.8% of US mobile phone users, or 138.8 million people, will also be Facebook users. And in that same timeframe, nine in 10 US Twitter users, or 53.2 million people, will access Twitter via mobile devices.
This proliferation of mobile in the workplace is leading to greater demands from employers that their employees be “always on,” according to research from Gallup. In April 2014, 36% of employed adults said they frequently checked their work email outside of normal office hours. Perhaps a more disconcerting finding was that close to one-third of employed adults said their employer expected them to check email or otherwise stay in touch outside of normal working hours.