mobile marketing

NPR's Marketplace's Steve Henn reports on one company that's diving right in.

STEVE HENN: If you locked a mad scientist in a room and asked her to create the ultimate marketing device, she might come back with something that would follow you around, track your desires, slip into your pocket and would always be on. In short, she'd hand you a cell phone.

MediaPost’s Research Brief recently highlighted a survey from Ruder Finn on how Americans use the mobile internet. The post is worth a quick read and provides some insight on how people use their phones (which is helpful for crafting a mobile strategy).

You can read the full post here.

The survey, the Mobile Intent Index, showed the driving factor behind people using their mobile phones to go online is immediacy. And that people use their mobile phones as a “social connector” – with 91 percent of mobile users going online to socialize, compared to the 79 percent of traditional internet users.

See this interactive full study: Ruder-Finn’s full results here.

By Bryce Marshall,
Chief Marketeer

Mobile marketing creates opportunities for timely and intimate consumer experiences, but is often poorly understood. And unlike online tactics like search, email, and social marketing, few brands have dollars set aside for mobile development, meaning business cases and ROI models must be cemented upfront. The good news is consumers are already mobile. Hundreds of millions of North American consumers are engaged with their mobile devices.

Many marketers are overwhelmed by the technologies and terminology that fall under "mobile." However, the foundational components of mobile marketing are straightforward, support core marketing and communications programs, and deliver clear and measurable outcomes.

Here are a few tips for making a mobile business case:

The Foundation

1. Text Messaging (SMS)

Mobile Marketer's Dan Butcher interviewed David Katz, vice president of North America at Yahoo Mobile, who revealed part of Yahoo's strategy for mobile. Below are some mobile tips from the conversation.

1. Pitch cross-platform buys: Most of the RFPs that Yahoo sees have mobile.
2. Assemble an integrated sales force: People that sell PC ads sell mobile ads.
3. Have a mobile specialist sales force but don't force advertisers to deal with multiple sales people to buy mobile.
4. Local is huge, use it: Mobile search results blocks away from you at a time of day.
5. Be platform agnostic: Go where users go.
6. Offer rich-media: Advertisers love ads like expanding ad units and mobile video.
7. Partner with local sales forces: Interface with local merchants.

Read the full story here.