"With 4.6 billion current mobile subscriptions projected to surge to 6.5 billion mobile connections by 2014, there's no denying it, marketers: Mobile has arrived—and it's changing how (and where) business professionals communicate with each other, and how (and why) business audiences interact with B2B brands," says Christina "CK" Kerley in a recent post at CK's Blog. And when you consider that Gartner predicts mobile phones will overtake PCs as the most common Web-access device worldwide by 2013... it's time to go B2B mobile—or just go away.

Kerley offers a couple of examples of how business professionals are interacting with B2B brands through mobile:

Apps and widgets. "Through developing apps and widgets—that underscore their brand's value proposition while providing benefits and solving problems for users—B2B marketers are afforded a rich new vehicle to build brand awareness and engage target audiences around their offerings," she notes. (Think: an ROI-calculator widget, or a city-guide app for business travelers.)

Location-based services. "Mobile programs can leverage LBS [location-based services] to target business audiences located within a respective proximity (such as at industry events when business professionals are at the same location)," says Kerley. "Or, mobile programs could use LBS to let professionals in the same industry reveal their locations to other peers so as to spark new, locally based professional connections."

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