Having been in meetings with marketers and via anecdotal third party comments, I know many are sitting on the fence with respect to mobile, uncertain whether it’s a novelty, tactic, strategy, channel or alternative to email. For better or worse, it can be some or all of these.
When you add to this mix that many businesses are reaping mobile marketing benefits, as shown every day on MobileMarketer.com and other sites, marketers in all industries sense urgency to at least try mobile marketing – be it developing a mobile optimized version of their website, an iPhone application or trying to employ SMS text messaging simply due to its reach.
I think this is the landscape documented in research covered today on eMarketer.com, in an article titled, “Mobile Marketers Demand ROI.” Results of a survey suggest marketers will pursue mobile marketing efforts in 
2010 – even allocating budget – but obstacles remain (as shown in the diagram included in this post).
“It appears that 2010 will be a year of experimentation and education on mobile marketing as marketers struggle to come to terms with its practicality and ROI.”
The greatest challenge – not surprisingly – is uncertainty around building the business case for mobile marketing, followed closely by a lack of ROI metrics and mobile not a part of the “strategic roadmap.” I’d argue all of these issues fall under the heading of simply “I don’t know where to start, given my business, my product or service and customer base.”
For this reason, Interactive Mediums developed an exercise called “Mapping Mobile to Your Marketing Strategy,” that when complete identifies the best candidate projects that align with your existing marketing plans and channels. This is based on our direct experience and observation of the ways leading companies are going to market with mobile as strategic elements of their business.
Taking time to experiment and educate is simply not an option for marketers given the pace of advancement among leading mobile marketers. Even trialing various approaches will leave you behind the curve as competition for consumer mobile mindshare escalates. Taking a thoughtful approach to mapping out a strategy can ensure your business plays a role in the mobile customer relationships that will surely separate the winners from losers.
