[REVIEW] White Paper: How to Build Mobile Applications in the Enterprise, Faster and Smarter by Flowfinity

Introduction / Disclaimer: Gated Resource is a term I am claiming to describe the white papers, eBooks, and webinars used by content marketers for B2B lead capture. Gated Resources are pervasive and subject to a wide range of best practice opinions. My intent is to surface individual Gated Resources through reviews and create conversation about optimization and outcomes. These are my own thoughts without approval or input of my employer or the content authors.

Getting started

Flowfinity is a company based in Vancouver, BC offering a platform for easily building enterprise mobile apps, and they've produced a significant gated resource library. I picked this paper because it was at the top of their list, and the title was interesting.

White Paper Summary

The 3.5 page paper discusses concerns relevant to enterprise mobile app development and deployment:

1. Low coding requirements
2. Version Control
3. Support for most imaginable business processes
4. Deployable in many environments
5. Integrate with existing databases and systems
6. Access control and security

The paper concludes with an argument for using a "declarative approach" to mobile app development that is accessible to line of business professionals. This approach has several benefits including fast development, minimal IT support requirements, and no required programming resources.

Flowfinity politely offers a free 30 day trial account at the end.

The paper is dense, but it was short and on point. It does a good job of highlighting important issues I'd want to think over prior to developing internal apps for my organization.

While the paper briefly dips its toe into technoish jargon...

...  applications should be assembled using a point and-click strategy and saved as metadata configuration files, instead of code. With this approach, the iOS and Android offline apps, desktop web apps, and backend database are all generated automatically from the single declarative definition.

...it doesn't stay there long and comes back to speak to the needs of the business user quite well. I really wanted to "get it" and it wasn't a gloss read for me, so I had to concentrate.

Overall, the paper is professionally organized, well written, and should be consumable by its intended audience in 10 or 15 minutes.

Intended audience

The paper positions Flowfinity as a solution for developing enterprise mobile apps that do not depend on developer or IT resources. Thus, the paper's first task is to speak to the concerns of established mid size and large enterprises, and it does a good job of this. Small companies seem less likely to be developing their own mobile apps.

The second objective is to speak to the right people in these companies. My hunch is that these are managers and directors of departments that would benefit from deploying mobile apps quickly at low risk. A big value of this paper is to demonstrate reduced IT/developer dependency, so if an IT/developer audience is desired, a different paper may be more effective.

Additional Content Ideas

Three fairly straightforward ideas come to mind that may improve the flow and utility of this paper for the intended audience:

1. Include a few user testimonials throughout the paper. It would lighten the tone somewhat, and give the business user a break from the density.
2. Include a few screen shots of the mobile apps build process showing how easy it is to control and implement.
3. Give a few examples of what the paper means by "mobile business process applications" and what real world use cases exist.

Call to Action

The CTA is a 30 day free trial offer, and I'm concerned that this may be too much too soon because trialing enterprise level software tools is a big deal. Conducting a real trial takes multiple levels of approvals and prioritization, assigning the right people with the time to do it, and a commitment to seeing it through. IT/developer managers will inevitably want to weigh in.

I'm sympathetic to the free trial CTA - believe me. I'm sure Flowfinity needs those trials to get going asap, and it probably feels like a harmless ask at the end of a paper, but this is a top of funnel paper, and baby steps are in order.

My inclination is to repurpose the substantial white space at the bottom of the 4th page and fill it with additional 2nd and 3rd level resource links that may propel the reader one step closer to trial. Examples:

1. Webinar of a short demo (i.e. <3 minutes)
2. Link to a live demo app
3. Links to case studies

Will it capture good leads?

The point of this paper appears to be capture of top of funnel business user leads for their inside sales development team to contact.

Thus, cost effective promotion and distribution of the paper to the intended audience will be a critical strategic consideration. The audience as I've imagined it is probably too broad, so it may be useful to ratchet it down with additional filters (i.e. industries, company size, custom questions) and use a 3rd party promotion expert, such as INFUSEmedia, who can deliver a consistent, validated volume of leads against those filters.

Now what?

If the paper is promoted off-site and serves as an initial point of entry to the company for the intended audience, then readers won't have gone through the main value and description pages on the Flowfinity.com website. These readers would benefit from a little more guidance about next steps short of the free trial.

Removing the free trial CTA entirely may be simply too much to bear, but I have to believe this is a good foundation building paper that sets the stage for additional resource consumption, demo, trial and implementation through a nurture path.

Simply adding alternative CTAs would be a great start for this paper.

My CTAs

I have three CTAs based on who you are - please pick one:

1. Are you involved in content marketing at Flowfinity? My intent is to be helpful, and I hope this was. I'm happy to look at other resources, or have a dialog about your promotion and distribution plans for ongoing lead capture. Please message me.
2. Are you involved in content marketing or demand generation and would like me to review (publicly or privately) one of your gated resources? Ideas to improve this review? Please leave a comment or message me directly.
3. Did you happen upon this article via a random feed link and make it this far? Thank you. Please leave a comment, share, or connect. Heck, feel free to message me!

Thank you for reading my first ever Gated Resource review. I've got 2 more reviews in the wings with more planned, so if you found this one interesting, please follow and I'll keep 'em coming.

About Me

I'm an Account Executive for INFUSEmedia based remotely in the beautiful Pacific Northwest - about halfway between Seattle and Vancouver, BC - raising a family and dreaming of many adventures ahead. I've been in sales and internet media for about 20 years and am happiest when involved in both at the same time. After all this time, I suppose I should try styling myself as a guru or expert, but I really do love the 1:1 interaction that comes with being in the sales trenches.