Practical advice and realistic measures for businesses to “mobilise” were the order of the day, the top priorities being to make websites mobile-friendly (“responsive”), to incorporate SMS and mobile-optimised email, and to use these channels to engage and reward customers. She advised the audience to only develop an app when it adds essential functionality and return on investment over and above that already provided by a responsive site.
Eileen’s talk also covered how proximity marketing and augmented reality can be incorporated into business apps with some practical app ideas for real estate agencies, field services and retailers. She wrapped up her talk with some more tips on useful tools for business owners and marketers to help them get “stuck in” to mobile marketing with responsive email and 2-way SMS being top of the list. Other recommended tools were Balsamiq for rapid wireframing, and Google’s Mobile Friendly Test and research tools such as “Our Mobile Planet” and “Think with Google”.

About the eircom Spiders Digital Workshop:
This year is the 20th year of the eircom Spiders -Ireland’s longest running digital awards – and the aim of the workshop was to gather the best people to arm SME’s with the digital knowledge to one day enter the awards. The event was opened by Gary Disley, Marketing Director at eircom Business Solutions and was moderated by Colin Meagle, Founder and Managing Director of Continuum.
Other speakers on the day included:
Eamonn Doyle, Chief Technology Officer, esri Ireland
Donal Ryan, Managing Director, Madinks
Greg Fry, Co-Founder, Content Plan
Sean Keyes, Tech B2C, Twitter
Seán Leamy,Head Of SEO , VROOM Digital
Billy Fitzgerald, Lead Designer, Continuum
