Here is published article in Marketing Sherpa based on a recent interview on moving forward with mobile marketing.

by Adam T. Sutton, Reporter

Technology always increases in power and decreases in price over time. The multimillion-dollar supercomputer of yesterday is today’s five dollar pocket calculator. Mobile phone technology is no different.

More people carry smartphones than ever before:

o 31.9% of all mobile subscribers used a Web browser on a mobile device in the three months ending in May 2010, according to comScore. That’s up from 26% in comScore’s September 2009 three-month average.

o 30% downloaded a mobile app in the three months ending in May, compared to 6.7% in the September 2009 three-month average, according to comScore.

“We’re definitely past the discussion of whether mobile is mainstream. It’s here,” says Matthew Snyder, CEO and Founder, ADObjects, a mobile strategy consultancy and agency.

Snyder has worked in mobile and consumer electronics for more than two decades. He spent 12 years with Nokia and eight years with Sony, based mostly in Japan, a mobile technology hotspot. He now helps companies understand how mobile channels can improve business and marketing performance.

We spoke with Snyder to get his take on what marketers need to consider before testing mobile marketing initiatives. Here are the five insights he provided:

Insight #1. Start with a mobile Web presence

Snyder is a strong believer in the Web. The cornerstone of any mobile strategy should be a Web presence, he says, whether it is a single landing page or a full mobile site. Even if a marketer is experimenting with sending SMS messages, these messages should include a link to a page where mobile users can learn more.

Here are four types of mobile Web presences Snyder sees:

1. Mobile versions of existing sites

Companies have built mobile websites which offer nearly the same features as their traditional websites, but which are adapted to a handheld format. A textbook example is Facebook’s mobile website (see Useful Links below).

2. Plug-in-based mobile sites

Similar to the first category, blogs and websites based on WordPress, Drupal or similar open-source platforms can use free plug-ins which format sites for mobile audiences (see useful links below).

3. Mobile landing pages

As the name suggests, these single-page entities can be created quickly to add a mobile-Web presence to a marketing campaign.

4. Dedicated mobile sites

These sites are standalone, multi-page entities, not mobile versions of a traditional website. They have their own designs and strategies to meet the needs of mobile visitors.

Insight #2. Consider all mobile options

Mobile networks and devices provide a range of ways to reach an audience — such as text, voice and email. When your team is considering how best to incorporate mobile into its marketing, consider all the major possibilities:

- Short Message Service (SMS)

SMS is capable of sending minimal, text-based messages to your audience, which can include links to call a phone number or visit a website.

- Multimedia Message Service (MMS)

MMS is similar to SMS technology, but can also send content such as images, video and audio files such as ringtones.

- Voice

Mobile phones have click-to-call functionality that enables audiences to reach you directly, or to click to request a call from your team.

- Web

Similar to traditional Web browsing, the mobile Web is continually adding pages of content designed for easy access from handheld devices.

- Proximity marketing

Smartphones with GPS and similar technologies are capable of broadcasting locations. Some marketers are taking the opportunity to deliver ads to mobile users in specific locations, such as when they’re near brick-and-mortar stores.

- Applications

Computer programs specially designed for smartphones are widely available and have their own marketplaces. Some marketers have directly integrated campaigns into their audiences’ phones by designing and offering a branded mobile app.

- Content

Branded content — including ringtones, images, videos and ebooks — are just a few of the many different types of digital information marketers can provide in a mobile format.

- Email

As any business professional with a Blackberry will tell you, email is a mobile channel. People frequently receive and send digital letters through handheld devices.

Insight #3. Mobile does not stand alone

Mobile marketing does not succeed as an isolated channel, Snyder says. Instead, it works best when integrated with other channels and tactics to form a cross-platform strategy.

Examples include:
o Combining SMS or barcode calls-to-action in traditional advertising
o Mobile apps that integrate with television shows
o Mobile coupons for in-store sales

Mobile promotions should also be integrated with other channels. For example, mobile content should be promoted on your website — e.g. if you’re advertising a free whitepaper download and it’s available in a mobile format, mention this in your website ads.

“Mobile, in general, is the glue that connects all media,” Snyder says, “As smartphones become more prevalent, the more they will be associated and attached with existing media channels.”

Insight #4. Mobile requires a well-planned strategy

It can be tempting to quickly test proximity marketing or a mobile website just to see what happens. But mobile marketing initiatives should be carefully planned, Snyder says. Otherwise, you risk wasting time and money, and possibly damaging your brand.

Areas to consider:

- Overall marketing strategy

Mobile devices are extremely personal. Owners carry them everywhere, and during all stages of the buying process.

Given mobile’s “constantly-connected” attributes, you must understand the impact of making mobile information available throughout your entire marketing strategy. Your team should know:
o Which specific goals you want to achieve
o How the tactic will help achieve those goals
o What possible negative impact it could have

- Usage cases for your audience

Determine the ways in which your audience would, or already does, interact with your company on mobile devices. Put yourself in their shoes — how could they use a smartphone to learn more about you?

By checking your website’s analytics you may find mobile visitors are already accessing your site.

“I’ve seen anywhere from 5% to 20% of existing websites getting hit by phones today,” Snyder says.

- Media buying and budget

Your team also will have to consider where mobile marketing fits into its media budget and priorities. You will have to gauge investment and potential return while ensuring the overall media plan is capable of meeting its targets.

Some mobile channels are inexpensive to test. For example, your team could easily add a call-to-action to your traditional advertising to ask viewers to send you an SMS message or visit your mobile site. Others are more expensive, such as mobile applications, which can cost between $20,000 and $100,000 to develop a quality product, Snyder says.

Useful links related to this article

Members Library – Mobile Website Advice from Taco Bell: 5 Considerations to Reach More Mobile Devices

Members Library – Consumer Behavior in the Mobile Channel: 4 Trends Marketers Should Note

comScore: May 2010 U.S. Mobile Subscriber Market Share

Wordpress: Mobile plug-ins

Drupal: Mobile plug-ins

Facebook mobile

Mobile Marketing Association

ADOstrategies

ABI Research has released a new White Paper, “Mobile Marketing Strategies – Positive Trend”  on the growing mobile marketing opportunity. It can be downloaded at no charge by anyone registered on the ABI Research website (www.abiresearch.com).

In Cooperation with MEF, ADObjects, Inc brings in the valuable overseas experience from Japan in m-Commerce as part of the International Guide on m-Commerce.  ADObjects, Inc provides leading edge consultancy services in the areas of mobile marketing and m-Commerce as well as building revenue generating partnerships with overseas companies looking toward market entry into North America. This guide has comprehensive examples and case studies from both leaders in Japan; SONY FeliCa and Entermotion.

FeliCa is a contactless RFID smart card system by Sony in Japan, primarily used in electronic money cards. The name stands for Felicity Card. First utilized in the Octopus card system in Hong Kong^[1], the technology is used in a variety of cards also in countries such as Singapore and Japan.  One of the key global operators to launch and bring FeliCa to the market was NTTDoCoMo. NTTDoCoMo’s m-Commerse Activities date back to the Early 20o5.   Brands such as McDonald’s and Seven-Eleven have fully utilized FeliCa for m-Commerce in Japan respectively.

Entermotion is one of the leading Japanese coupon and mobile marketing platform companies in Japan.

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Today, MEF North America Launches M-Commerce Guide to Drive Customer Acquisition, Retention and Conversion

• MEF values global mobile media industry at $36bn globally
• 53% of consumers have a propensity to use their mobile handsets for financial transactions*
• One out of every seven minutes of media consumption today takes place via mobile devices**

The M-Commerce guide is the first output of MEF’s M-Commerce Initiative led by an expert committee of members and written through consultation with leading industry players to engage, educate and evolve the potential of mobile. The guide is designed to help brands, content owners/producers and retailers better understand how to leverage the mobile device to drive customer acquisition, retention and, most importantly, conversion.

While the definition of M-Commerce includes a broad range of categories, for the purposes of this guide, we have limited the definition to include the following:

• Digital content, goods and services purchased and delivered on the mobile device (in channel services) as well as tangible products purchased through the handset but physically delivered (out of channel products)
• All forms of commerce whether paid for or ad-funded/sponsored.

Mobile banking is not included.

The guide has been authored with the leadership and invaluable support of the following MEF member companies: 2ergo, ADObjects, Billing Revolution, Boku, engage2mobile, Impact Mobile, Inmar, KPMG, mBlox, Motorola, Netbiscuits, Nokia, Polar Mobile, Playphone, RIM, Samsung, Sybase365, Synergy World, T-Mobile and Zong.

The guide has been published with the kind support and sponsorship of Impact Mobile, Inmar, KPMG and mBlox.

Download the Guide
To see the press release

Come see ADO and team at the MMA’s annual NYC mobile marketing forum event.

Today is a very exciting day in the field of brand marketing and advertising!  It marks the day of the Advertising Revolution in my mind. Steve Job announced iAD at the iPhone 4.0 Dev conference.  It has been something we have all been anticipating for some time.  I myself have been looking at the ideas around emotional brand marketing and interactivity with mobile as a core part of our work here at ADObjects.   As the mobile device is so personal it is our emotional amplifier.  It is with us night and day and clearly something we just can not keep our eyes off of… it goes way beyond the SMS lead, but what experience surrounding the brand.

Our vision and motto: Digital Hand. Analog Touch is further realized….

Well Apple gets it and keeps revolutionizing upon the vision of all of us in the media space for what the true mobile device can be all about. Besides creating a massive ecosystem for publishers to bring unique new tantalizing experiences via applications, they have set a new bar in bringing out this exciting platform for brand marketers…

Here is some of the coverage……. not only is today the day of the Golf Masters where Tiger Woods is back with NIKE,  Steve obviously is bringing NIKE as an example at such a serendipitous time.   NIKE is attacking brand marketing from all different angles today!

1) iPhone Nike Ad Demo

Here is the coverage on Techcrunch

2) Apple Announces the iAD mobile advertising platform

And here is the comprehensive coverage of the day on gdgt.

3) Live iPhone 4.0 coverage

So now we have video, information, click-to-action and all different exciting formats blended together for brand marketers in a unique delivery system that came from the foundation of the mobile advertising company Quattro Wireless.  Regardless of what they paid for this company, Apple has been able to transform the vision of unique engagement marketing into there magical experience around the iPhone. Google has been about reach and performance via clicks-on-links.   Apple is about reach and performance based on clicks-on-emotions.   Our from this we will see new metrics emerge for the foundations of brand marketing as part of the conversion funnel such as CTE ( Click-to-Emotion).

How exciting is it going to be now to see how all the incumbents match this challenge.   Google is still in discussion with the FTC over Admob, Microsoft has been so focused on Search, and all the mobile advertising companies out there are trying to innovate in there own right with new mobile ad formats and concepts to bring differentiation.   This is big day as it will definitely get  media buyers to go deeper with their creative producers in the agencies to build that new from of brand-experience  for their clients with mobile.

In the wake of the Google Acquisition announcement of AdMob for $750M last week,   the Global Mobile Marketing Forum held in LA on November 17^th exhibited a lot of excitement about the future of mobile for 2010. Every year has been the running debate over when is the “Year of Mobile”, and 2009 was clearly the transition for mobile marketing. Mobile marketing has been up 40% this year and from the words of the chair in the kick-off of the day, Michael Weirs, CEO of the Mobile Marking Association stated that, “The third largest acquisition by Google of AdMob, gives us a lot of confidence and validation that mobile advertising and marketing is about to explode, and we are excited about all that has happened over the course of 2009.  Now we are seeing Mobile as a budget line item. For instance, Volkswagon is doing things exclusively with iPhone Apps independent of other media channels”.  We had many of our Pacific North West colleagues here, including Microsoft that made an announcement of joining the Mobile Marketing Association’s new Premium Membership category as the spearhead partner to support much of the policy discussions facing the industry today, and our friends at MyThumb won an award in the North America Multi-Mobile Channel to validate that Canada is also part of the Global leadership in the creative marketing of mobile.  Michael Carter, CEO, MyThum in his acceptance speech stated, “This one for you Canada!”.

The event was filled with many great presentations and new nuggets of information about the industry with a sit down Awards Ceremony Dinner in the evening.  Many of the Global Mobile Marketing firms flew in for the event from China, South Africa and as far as Brazil.   It was showcase of the best in class mobile marketing companies and campaigns to date.  Here is link for the winners of the Global Advertising and Marketing Awards ceremony in the evening.  Mobile Advertising Awards Winners.

I had the opportunity to judge the competition and some of the campaigns that were real “eye-openers” from my perspective in terms of real ROI and creative excellance were from agencies such as Mobile Dreams Factory’s Mini Mobile Dealer, Gap Style Mixer from AKQA, Pizza Hut iPhone App from Pizza Hut, Trident Fresh from F.biz and  MyThum’s Rogers/Live Nation live ticketing solution.

Some of the highlights and comments from the day are as follows:

Tom Daly, Group Manager, Strategy and Planning, Coca-Cola Company, presented what it takes for mobile agencies to work with Coca-Cola.  It is not easy to get into Coca-Cola, but “We are working with over 400 brands in 200 countries with a minimum of $8K per brand per country, and it is growing and we are looking for new partners”. We have three core things we look for in mobile agencies. 1) Your Talent & Environment 2) Your thought leadership and 3) Your account management process.  “We look for best in class to take Coca-Cola to the world leaders in creative mobile marketing and transparency is key”

Matt Crowley, CMO, AT&T Interactive presented the future of local and search as the real driver for mobile advertising. He said that when you think about mobile, and if look at it as a function of mobile advertising, search must be a key driver.  “Today the total of Mobile ad spend is about 70% Display and SMS compared to 30% search, but this will change to 25% Display and SMS,  with 70% Search in 2013” , said Matt.  “With most of it as local search, of the 79M AT&T subs and 22M on Medianet (AT&T’s mobile portal) there is over 22% access of Medianet daily.”  He elaborated that their focus is on the actual precision consumer targeting at a local level with integrated marketing solutions- linking SMS to banners.  “We have seen over 250% YOY mobile search network growth and our goal is to pre-load the YP mobile app with local search on every device”, stated Matt

Louis Gump, VP of Mobile, CNN ( A celebrity in the mobile marketing community as a past Chair of the MMA board and a long-timer in the industry) discussed the future of news on mobile. He asked the audience how many look at news on their mobile before they get out of bed in the morning and the crowd showed about 30%. He elaborated to say that mobile news is something that has been exciting for Turner to really build a mobile strategy. CNN has a Freemium model with the mobile website free and agreed on the paid CNN app. They debated the pricing for this, but decided on the $1.99 price as a way to keep mobile moving forward as a profit center to propel initiatives across all the mobile strategies of CNN. For CNN mobile products they do not think of iPhones only, but have very holistic strategy of  butfour major platforms

1)      Mobile website, with 11~12M users  per month and free and ad supported,

2)      Text messaging- breaking news alerts,

3)      Video- on-demand and streaming, clips much more widely.

4)      Apps and a Sept 27^th release that has changed the way news is consumed on the  iPhone.

5)      Their mobile news strategy follows the following usage cases.

• Read
• Watch
• Save
• Follow
• iReport ( citizen journalism) with users getting a my CNN section on the phone. The iReport product with  the reporting has become a  trusted source, and 1-button for the ability to quickly upload and mix together….

“We wanted a dual revenue stream, and at $1.99, yes, there was debate over prices from $0.99~9.99,  but we chose that price as we doing this for marketing. We want mobile as a sustainable business platform.  We should not  loose-money and for news gathering organizations, “ he stated, “ We need not only the oneway free route, but a way to think of sustainability of 3,5 and10 years down the road.”   “ Of all the users that access news both from Online and Mobile, 34% only access it only from mobile. This serves as unduplicated reach for home consumptions. Over 1/3 were not going to anybody on any other platform mobile is now the channel for CNN to reach a different demographic of people” said Louis

Charles Johnson, Head of Mobile Advertising for Microsoft lead an engaging panel on the future of mobile advertising. Ken Wilner, CEO,  Zumobi and a native of Seattle stated that that key to mobile is “engagement”. Yes, acquisition is important, but once you obtain a consumer, the on-going engagement is second to none as mobile is with the consumer all the time, everywhere. Frank Babieri, CEO,  Transpera stated, “ That of the users that access online video that also access mobile video,  more then 62% of the time they will access it from mobile. This is a defining point for mobile and the industry”. Charles concluded that all of us usually replace our phones every 12~18months and we  will most likely get a smart or super phone.  2010 will be the year of mass-device transition, that will accellorate our industry even further.

Bruce Withers, Head of Mobile, Wells Fargo, shared a vision around mobile banking. Wells Fargo has been nominated as one of the top mobile banking solutions in North America and mentioned that this is a core to their strategy to reach young customers ( Gen Y and Millennials) that are mobile professionals that need banking services on the go.  Wells Fargo, as well, have a multi-approach strategy for mobile.  From Text messaging alerts were the user averages about 19 requests per month, to  the mobile website and iPhone application that both get about 6 sessions per month. They are continuing to grow very nicely.   They have added unique features in their iPhone App such as ATM finder and direct links to wellsfargo.com.   He stated that is it important for a mobile web strategy to find partners that are compliant with the W3C and described the process of how they won the ABI Research Award in mobile banking by scoring tops in all of the categories of 1)Reach, 2)Breadth of services, 3)Security and 4)Discoverability.  Of the twenty-nine banks entered they were at the top.  He stated that consumer behavior is really changing and mobile is the a key strategy now for them as a financial institution.

Given the large changes in the industry, Peter Johnson, VP Research, Mobile Marketing Association, took the stage to describe the latest from the Research and Metrics Committee.  They have been having quite an open dialog with the Agency community and in a recent survey they found a highlight of the research that successful mobile marketers that leveraged coupons and loyality programs found this to be the most successful of all the mobile marketing approaches.   Even today the average media spend for agencies on mobile is still only 1.8% of the total spend.  However, those that have found mobile marketing successful have been moving the budgets already to the 2~3% amount of thier overall spend.  He stated that in 2009 there was a total of about $1.7B on mobile marketing.  However, this would have been $2.5B  if the successful were the norm, so there is more best practices, education and a wider sharing of knowledge still required.  The MMA is working toward more sharing of the knowledge worldwide and making sure best practices are better evangelized.

Mike Carter, CEO, MyThum and Tiffany Gerhard, Sr. Manager, Marketing- Emerging Capabilities, BestBuy had a great session on the success of cross-media marketing for a retail brand.  For me it was one of the highlights of the day given the fact Best Buy only  two years ago was doing just about nothing in mobileand now through partnerships have a very holistic cross-company strategy.  They now have a strategy that includes mobile as part of the media-mix, marketing budget and core strategy to the CRM strategy. “ We wanted to find the core strategy of mobile for the Best Buy brand and for us it is in the area of CRM and mobile commerce ”. stated Tiffany. “ We have found the usage case quite good for us when many of our customers come into the store that find when a product is out of stock, they can just go to thier Best Buy application and click-to-buy in one action and then have the product delivered right to their home”. She said. For them building a relationship as part of their CRM strategy proved to be quite useful in the final sale as well as guiding all kinds of useful information that can support consumers in the buying  process. Mobile has become a priority for them and they mentioned that “ everyday now is a learning process for us to get better with mobile”.  For Best Buy they have these objectives for thier mobile strategy.

• Bridge physical and digital
• Support local growth efforts
• Increase customer satisfaction & loyality
• Create ongoing customer conversations.  Trigger to aquire and go forward basis, based on one-off projects, to a continued and to build that base

They said that even though MyThum was key for them to build up the mobile solution for Best Buy, there is a lot of in-house integration at this time and that the partnership will continue in a very unique manner. Getting experts to support in the process has really made it efficient and easy for us to enter mobile successfully

To finalize, here are some other quick discussions and quotes through-out the day.

• Zaw Thet, CEO, 4Info discussed the need for an industry wide initiative for the mobile cookie.  Today the next best thing is the users telephone number or UID on the iPhone.  By using this we can recognise and build cross-media campaigns for targeting users from platform to platform.
• Chetan Sharma, Chetan Sharma Consulting, stated that we are finally seeing the growth of the networks and now mobile has surpassed the data card.
• Michael Shim,  Head of Mobile Sales, Yahoo!, described that Yahoo’s growth of 54.8%  still is greater then the average for the industry of 45.4% with the mobile internet.  They are doing all kinds of unique ad solutions for the App as well as working on many cross-media campaigns with clients such as Subway that links the web to mobile
• Maria Mandel, Senior Partner, Executive Director Digital Innovation, Ogilvy and North American Board Chair, Mobile Marketing Association, described again that  Mobile is the highest, always on, personalized device, simple text messaging and simple text messaging. There is a tactic for any objective.  It is not about the tactic, how they use the mobile device and the best way for that user….Reaching that consumer at the right time with the right message.

So in conclusion, was “2009 the year of Mobile”? The day provided a lot of discussion and debate, but the general consensus was that we are not there yet and that 2010 would really be the year of mobile.  With budgets coming back,  mobile starting to be line items, and with the acceleration of  replacement of phones with smartphones in 2010, the year of mobile is 2010.   The market in 2010 will clearly be a place of reach and scale for proper turn-key media strategies and mobile.

mSearchGroove’s Peggy Salz presented a collaborative piece on how to best leverage location services on your business at the 2009 International Information Innovation Conference held on the 30th September & 1st of October 2009 at the George Hotel with the awards ceremony being held aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia in Edinburgh.

Now in its sixth year the directory assistance conference and awards supports the leading innovators and newcomers in the information services and search marketplace. To recognise the developments in the industry from 2010 the event will be called theInformation Innovation Conference & Awards.

ADObjects-Inc worked together with mSearchGroove to present real stories and solution for online directories to embrace a mobile strategy leveraging their content and location as a key driver for a syndicated business.  Here is the presentation from the event.