“…a pilot SMS reminder solution…ended with unprecedented results – saving Kaiser nearly $150 per appointment and over $275,000 at a single clinic.”

Efficiencies and costs savings were at the heart of the value in this example, which is apparently driving consumer acceptance of text message alerts – the post’s title is after all, “Survey: Consumers Want SMS Alerts.”  The study was conducted in the U.K., but you can expect similar attitudes prevail in the U.S.

While these numbers are impressive, I would argue that marketers need to keep their eyes on the top line/revenue growth “yin” to the cost savings/efficiencies “yang” offered by text messaging.  That’s the theme behind the diagram included in line with this post.

As marketers in any segment – healthcare or otherwise – approach the mobile channel, they have a variety of options for getting started, as we have previously discussed around mapping strategy to the mobile channel.

Many organizations will approach text messaging from a non-marketing perspective, which can yield impressive cost savings and efficiencies among an entire customer base – which tends to be dominated by customers served at a loss or break-even.  Thus the utility of text messaging as a cost saver.

Those companies that leverage mobile marketing techniques in a parallel fashion to target the revenue side of business should experience even greater results by increasing the pool of highest value customers – the 20 or so percent which generate the greatest value, be it profits or revenue.  The key to unlocking that added value is employing mobile engagement techniques such as promotions and others that call consumers to action.

The survey finds product recommendations accessible via mobile devices as a huge opportunity for retailers, with 65 percent of those surveyed saying they would make purchases were it easier to find products of interest.  Retailers heeding this advice will implement mobile-accessible product reviews and recommendations based on factors such as real time inputs by a consumer (looking for a plasma screen TV, what are my options?) and historical transaction data if available (purchased TV in the past, suggest a DVD player).

A potential battleground retailers need to keep eyes on is the mobile product reviews/recommendations/comparison space.  On one hand, retailers can develop branded mobile experiences for their customers that are essentially “closed” environments by virtue of product selection limited to that one retailer.  Combined with clever engagement strategies such as mobile promotions, this can effectively combat third parties that aggregate product information, prices and reviews across retailers.

These services could render retail store environments as mere “pick up” spots for products browsed, reviewed, and compared by mobile shoppers.  The retail sector may be in store for a complete shift in power unless mobile engagement strategies rise to the top of marketing plans and priorities.

Just the other day we blogged about the hype around mobile advertising created by recent acquisitions.  We’ve also covered issues surrounding mobile ad metrics.

We’re keeping close tabs on developments in this area for our customers so they understand where to prioritize mobile advertising alongside their broader customer engagement charters inclusive of SMS text messaging, mobile optimized websites, smartphone applications and social media.

An integrated approach to mobile channel marketing – akin to creating more effective mobile ads – is an innovation which greatly increases the likelihood your mobile marketing efforts won’t suck.

Mobile advertising, just like traditional web ads, is an exciting area because of the reach and audience segmentation possibilities.  In parallel with significant investment moves by Google and Apple to get involved via acquisition, the hype around mobile ads is at a fever pitch right now.  I’m afraid customers and investors who fixate here are in for some disappointment down the line, however.

Click through rate, or CTR, is the measure by which mobile and traditional online ads alike are gauged, and the article highlights global research showing that the unlikely Symbian platform is the leader in offering high CTRs, even in the U.S. where it’s not as dominant in terms of market share.

Clearly, a lot of advertisers are thinking “I have to be on Symbian” yet the hype and press would never point an ad buyer at this platform as opposed to the iPhone or a Google Android device.

Advertisers need to remember as well, where are those who click through going to?  A mobile optimized landing page or website?  A smartphone application download?  A coupon or bar code for redemption at the point of sale?  If the answer to any of these is “none of the above” and instead “we’re just happy to have lots of eyeballs seeing our message,” a huge opportunity to drive sales, engender loyalty, or cultivate brand affinity is wasted.

Viewing mobile as an engagement channel that allows businesses to create highly personal interactions that induce action on the part of customers is the real opportunity represented by mobile advertising.  It needs to be viewed as just one part of the value equation, which is why marketers are increasingly coming to Interactive Mediums to leverage our mobile customer engagement platform and expertise around creating effective mobile dialogues with customers across SMS text messaging, mobile web, apps and social media.

Both attendees and exhibitors alike were apparently personally armed with the devices and reportedly had either iPhone apps already in the market or were preparing them.  Large technology vendors in attendance also had iPhone apps to talk about, from Oracle and Sterling Commerce to Intel.  Funny that Apple itself was absent.

The observations reported in the article highlight just how powerful a marketing platform the iPhone has become yet retailers should not forget about text messaging as an effective mobile marketing method that can reach almost any mobile phone user.  Although applications are popular, engagement via text messaging is being used by retailers to overcome challenges around loyalty and comparison shopping behavior.

The best strategy is a balanced one considering the impact but lower reach of a rich smartphone application as opposed to the almost universal reach offered by SMS text messaging, especially those facilitating promotions such as sweepstakes and contests.  Targeting the mobile customer experience first, then determining the blend of approaches to achieve your goals is becoming the standard of excellence for successful mobile marketers.

Although it doesn’t say so, this post yesterday on eMarketer.com suggests that providing incentives designed to keep your mobile savvy customers in store is closely tied to ensuring they don’t bail and visit another store for a better deal:

“The threat comes from in-store shoppers using their phones to check sales prices at other retailers.  Compete found that 41% of iPhone users and 43% of Android users do just that.”

“You could argue that every retailer on the planet is an off-balance-sheet showroom for Amazon.  So if you go into a retailer’s store and you see something you like—type in that manufacturer’s SKU number and check the price on Amazon. You’ve looked at it, you’ve touched it, felt it, and now you’re getting the benefit of potentially getting the best price on it too.”

To meet this challenge, the post recommends “A retailer’s best defense for maintaining customer loyalty is to develop a mobile offering that allows in-store shoppers access to customer reviews and other product information on its Website.   This is where the opportunity lies for retailers.  By providing mobile access to their extensive online product information, they help customers feel more comfortable about making a purchase.”

This is a logical recommendation, yet it will not prevent price sensitive, mobile enabled customers from comparison shopping and potentially leaving the store.  It also ignores reseach suggesting that loyalty not be the target, but rather engagement.

To keep customers in-store and increase the probability of purchase, retailers should build engagement strategies into their mobile plans such as text message promotions like sweepstakes and other contests.

Consumers value their time as much as their money, which is why many are excited at the prospect of instantly performing a price comparison quickly then moving onto another store.  Retailers who create engaging mobile programs that keep customers in-store such as promotions lessen the likelihood that they will take the time to visit another store.

Yet read between the lines and you could imagine each company’s approach complementing one other very well, providing marketers with a variety of effective and measurable approaches to reaching consumers.

While there is nothing to prevent Google from developing a large screen tablet mobile device such as is expected of Apple shortly, a larger screen should serve as a higher value advertising basis than handheld devices.  This January 4, 2009 article about Nexus One on The New York Times website says as much:

“…some surveys show that users are wary of ads that could clutter the precious real estate on their small cellphone screens.  And phone users seem more willing to pay a few dollars for applications or content than PC users, potentially reducing the importance of advertising.”

Handheld devices lend themselves much better to simple advertisements akin to those seved by Google in association with its search engine or even by recently acquired AdMob.  This article speculates:

“(Apple) could develop ad units and formats that it thinks are way better than the tiny banner ads already on the mobile web.”

Apple’s reputed tablet device may be the ideal basis for such higher value ad formats.  Marketers will soon be faced with having to decide among different approaches for reaching their customers via mobile advertising, but should not neglect the need to engage customers directly using mobile marketing techniques such as those offered by Interactive Mediums.

With advertising focused almost entirely on acquisition and loyalty a constantly moving target, marketers require compelling engagement capabilities to rope customers into fulfilling experiences that encourage consumption.  That’s what Active Customer Engagement is all about.

While that sounds like a terrific step or opportunity for consulting firms, as I point out in a comment on the post I don’t see many marketers taking advantage of APIs to this end.  Instead, I see:

• Marketers partaking in mobile advertising across multiple networks without any expectation at resolving the metrics across them, at least not at first.  All forecasts predict that mobile advertising will explode in the next few years, suggesting marketers are either unconcerned or unaware of the issues described in the blog post.
• Because marketers generally are drawn to mobile because it is among the most trackable and accountable channels, they soon may bump into the metrics integration issue.  Those marketers who do will fall into two camps: those who lack the resources or business case for integration regardless of API availability and those who will integrate because mobile advertising directly supports sales.

Let me explain: Many businesses utilize mobile advertising for awareness, branding and demand generation.  If resolving metrics across networks becomes an issue, I expect many marketers to narrow their network partners to one or two that offer access to the most targeted group of potential customers – to undertake an integration exercise is simply not worth the effort.  Other businesses that can drive sales via mobile transactions, however, will find it imperative to integrate metrics and tie these back to sales since the advertising directly supports the business.

With awareness/branding and demand generation representing arguably the largest mobile ad market opportunity, it suggests that mobile networks as a segment will narrow to 1-3 leaders with others either acquired or rendered irrelevant.  Thus, pretty quickly a consistent view of mobile ad metrics should happen almost automatically.

When it comes to engaging customers in the mobile channel, there is a strong analogy.  A single system which allows marketing objectives to be tailored to the mobile channel, executed and tracked, should be high on marketers’ priority lists in 2010.

Technology-wise, I am talking about SMS text messaging, mobile optimized websites, mobile applications, mobile email and social media.  In practice, marketers enabled with a solution that stitches each of these together will have a significant advantage over those who don’t.

For example, imagine engaging your customers via SMS text messaging, let them forward the invitation response to their Twitter followers, send text responders a thank you email, point them to a mobile website to redeem a coupon or to download a mobile application designed for their handset to enhance the shopping experience.  And, track this activity across all these mobile channels in a single system that easily integrates with the only system that matters — the one registering sales.

Instead, marketers need to consider ways of driving consumption of their products across all kinds of customers, be they classified loyal or not, in the most efficient manner available. SMS text message sweepstakes contests promoted at and around the point of sale, and offering many rewards versus one, are a proven tactic that could be packaged and presented to customers as a loyalty program.

Such promotions can be executed quickly and largely in “hands off” mode for the marketer when using a mobile campaign management system like that offered by Interactive Mediums. That benefit came to mind as I came across additional research into customer loyalty that underscores the importance of an effective engagement strategy, more so than one designed to create “loyal” customers, who many in fact be a mythical concept. Consider the following from an article titled, “The 30 major factors behind a successful customer loyalty programme,” from TheWiseMarketer.com (registration required):

Focus on data value, not just repeat business: “The smarter operators used loyalty programmes not to buy repeat visits but to garner information from their customers in order to learn more about them: who their most profitable and least profitable customers were, what they wanted, and what changes or offerings would be most likely to make them truly loyal.”

Spend more time on engagement strategy, less on selling to customers you don’t want: “In Philip Kotler’s version of a Pareto Principle chart, the top 20% of customers generate 80% of the profits, while the bottom 30% of customers eat up 50% of the profits that the others produce.”

Paradoxically, attempting to sell to past customers is a distracting exercise: “Customer win-back expert Michael Lowenstein (of Harris Interactive) says that the success rate in approaching ‘lost’ customers can be three to four times as high as it is when prospecting for new customers. For example, the rate for converting prospects might typically be 5%, while that for reactivating inactive customers might be as high as 15% – 20%.”

These are just three of 30 different points, but were especially notable given the fit with mobile marketing tactics such as sweepstakes promotions. Interactive Mediums’ Customer Engagement Platform has powered effective promotions for many marketers who didn’t likely approach the project with the facts in hand regarding loyalty.

Marketers yet to embrace mobile marketing tactics such as sweepstakes as part of a broader engagement strategy need to get started now; because if you don’t your competition will, making it that much harder to break through the engagement barrier.

Yes, that’s a UPS truck snapped today outside the local Starbucks, in all the glory of Chicago winter weather on the company’s busiest day – some 20 million packages according to Donna.

Yet, the Blackberry application, like an iPhone version preceding it, is designed to enable business and consumer customers alike to find a drop off location, receive shipping quotes, order pickups and check on package delivery status.  Dig beneath the details, as we did with Donna, and you gain a greater appreciation for what was involved:

• UPS employs an Information Technology group 5,000 strong, who possess deep mobile application expertise and were responsible for creating applications which interact with UPS’ massive global network of package and delivery data.
• Considerable research went into creating the new mobile application, to understand how best to serve their customers and offer a differentiated user experience from competing delivery services.  To these ends, UPS discovered customers wanted a fully native application as opposed to be directed to a mobile website.  Why?  Because application code can be fully loaded on a handset.  From the user’s perspective, this offers a more natural responsiveness consumers associate with desktop computer applications, with time taken only to bring new data across the network.  Navigating a website, even one optimized for mobile, can often seem more cumbersome and of course in the event of a network lapse the session will end abruptly.  Moreover, the UPS app allows consumers to log into the application once, and automatically upon launch relate any packages to their account to view instant status – no keying in of lengthy tracking numbers are required.
• Some UPS business customers are beginning to request the ability to have text messages sent to recipients and/or senders, providing notification of package delivery.  Even greater reach could be possible were UPS to enable customers to text their tracking numbers to receive instant updates – all of which are capabilities available in Interactive Mediums’ Engagement Platform.

Few organizations have the staff, funding or internal systems to execute a mobile strategy to the extent UPS has; for those who lack any of these critical pieces firms like Interactive Mediums stand ready with a flexible Customer Engagement Platform optimized for mobile interactions as well as a wealth of experience developing mobile applications which map to the way consumers want to engage with a business.

As UPS says “What Can Brown Do For You?” we say “How can Interactive Mediums power more effective mobile interactions for your customers?”

• Half of your loyal buyers this year will not be loyal to you next year (Catalina Marketing’s analysis of tens of millions of shoppers).
• The 20% of buyers who account for 80% of sales includes super-heavy category users who might even prefer another brand and purchase that brand more.
• On average, 30% of loyal buyers do not have attitudes about your brand that support their loyalty and are the ones who are most likely to defect.
• For most brands, only a single-digit fraction of your customers connect to you via social media.

So despite so much emphasis on developing loyalty programs and the hype surrounding social media’s influence on consumer behavior, the facts suggest brand marketers are struggling against a tide they cannot overcome.  The article also raises interesting statistical research showing that successful brands connect not only with frequent, loyal customers, but all potential consumers:

“…you must find more people to become loyal, but you also must increase your share of purchases among those who buy your brand less than half the time.”

To achieve this, the author suggest marketers focus on “activating” their brands with consumers, which entails “imaginative shopper marketing, visibility, packaging (which is your ‘ad’ that every buyer sees), the right configuration of features, the right price, findability as people search and pre-shop digitally, and buying ads in special-interest magazines… just to mention a few ideas.”

I suggest that marketers identifying with these challenges look to mobile marketing tactics such as interactive text message promotions and sweepstakes that can pull consumers into perpetual dialogs with brands.  Promoting such programs at and around the point of sale is one approach brand marketers can use to influence less loyal consumers to consume their products.

The statistics and statements like the following suggest it’s imperative for marketers to look for ways of engaging as many consumers as possible with their brands.

“The marketing approach that calls for building brand engagement isn’t wrong, but it’s incomplete.  It doesn’t help you figure out how to grow the half of your sales that comes from less-loyal buyers who find multiple competing brands are acceptable.”

Given the reach offered by text message-enabled consumers and proven response rates in the 20-30 percent range, mobile promotions are a logical solution to this challenge.  Engagement platforms such as that offered by Interactive Mediums provide marketers a multitude of approaches to suit any promotional requirement.

We have previously written about this capability here in a recent Point of View and here in a Success Story, but I came across a great article on PromoMagazine.com that outlines some best practices which marketers should heed as they look to engage their customers in revenue producing and brand enhancing ways in 2010.

Titled, “Offer Multiple Prizes Instead of Just One,” the article describes the use of many individual prizes as incentives in a contest promotion, versus one large one.  The advantages include:

• Higher probably of engagement since consumers perceive a greater chance of winning.
• The opportunity to create a positive brand experience with more than a single winner.
• Consumers simply are drawn to the opportunity to win something of value and given the current state of the economy, more consumers are looking for such chances.
• A focus on many individual prices allows marketers to brand those awards with logos and messages.  That is harder to do with a car or other large hard goods prize.

Executing promotions in this manner ensures greater participation and a higher return, or as stated in the article:

“The hundreds of thousands of contacts…garnered can now be used for future, cost-effective, one-to-one, brand-to-consumer dialogue — which is typically the end-goal of any sweepstakes.”

Marketers or the companies who develop promotions for them should align themselves with technology solutions that allow such multi-dimensional contests to be designed, deployed and measured quickly and cost effectively.

A partner such as Interactive Mediums stands ready with an easy to use offering that will not box you into a single type of contest or one isolated to a single channel.

Just keep in mind that fixating on apps as your entre into mobile marketing is not the right approach.  Instead, you need to consider your objectives and how they can be met by available mobile marketing approaches, including apps.

The paper cleverly outlines a hypothetical conversation between a marketer and his executive team.  The marketer mentions that mobile presents a unique opportunity for deeper engagement with their customers (true), but the conversation quickly identifies a mobile app as the means (and many questions emerge).

The paper mentions the following:

• What devices, operating systems and handsets allow us to reach the target audience?
• Where does the transaction with the audience occur?
• Why would our audience seek brand engagement though the mobile channel?
• How will success be measured from both internal metrics and external user perspectives?

These are absolutely the right questions as they don’t imply an application is the answer; instead, they speak to mapping your objectives to the mobile customer experience.  Unfortunately, the paper poses them in line with the assumption that an app is in fact the answer.

The paper includes the same diagram we highlighted in this recent blog post where we commented on research into the types of applications most often retained and used.  Applications can be the centerpiece of many mobile marketing strategies, but certainly not all as highlighted in the research. 

Text messaging and other mobile interactions, as well as the mobile web are equal partners in executing mobile customer relationship management strategies.  All or only some may form the basis of winning mobile marketing strategies.  Partners like Interactive Mediums stand ready to prescribe and deliver the right mix for your business.

“Customer engagement is seen as being about creating relationships which result in value both for customers and for organisations.  Company respondents are most likely to indicate that increasing long-term customer value (37%) and increasing value delivered to the customer (35%) describe their interest in customer engagement most appropriately.”

Surprisingly, the study finds tactics like email newsletters and Twitter are top of mind among many of those marketers surveyed.  It’s therefore not surprising that:

“Marketers are benefiting more from the relationship-building aspects of customer engagement rather than being exclusively focused on the more directly financial benefits such as sales.”

With marketers under more pressure than ever to deliver quantitative results for their investments, it is hard to imagine CMOs authorizing significant investments in engagement strategies which cannot be measured.  The beauty of Active Customer Engagement is that by definition, it’s measurable and maps to business objectives.  It was encouraging therefore to read that:

“Mapping the customer experience across all touch points has a tangible impact on the ability to engage with customers.  Of the companies who said their customer engagement strategy has been successful, 46% say they are ‘very advanced’ or ‘quite advanced’ at mapping their customer touch-points.  For the companies who have not been successful, only 14% are quite advanced and none are very advanced at this kind of mapping.”

We prescribe this same process to help marketers hone in on the mobile marketing strategy that will create the greatest impact to their business.  Doing so can yield results such as these, where a casino implemented a three tiered mobile program that is a fundamental part of its customer engagement strategy.

Following is an excerpt from the study regarding the mobile channel – marketers who embrace mobile as a foundation of their engagement strategies will achieve better results than those who do not. Firms like Interactive Mediums make it easy to get started.

• A large proportion (41%) of companies are not planning any investment at all in the mobile channel in 2010, and a further 49% are planning only limited investment. Only 11% are planning to invest significantly but this increases significantly for the largest companies.
• Only a small number of organisations (6%) say they have a customer engagement strategy which seamlessly embraces mobile marketing. The majority of companies who are using the mobile channel at all are using it just for the occasional, ad-hoc piece of marketing (18%).
• When it comes to building customer engagement, companies have been quickest to use the mobile channel for increased dialogue with customers. A fifth of company respondents say they are doing this and a further 36% say they plan to do this.
• One-third (34%) of companies are planning to create applications for mobile phones, in addition to the 16% who say they are already doing this.
• Nearly two thirds of companies (62%) have no plans for mobile commerce. Only 10% of companies are using transactional mobile activity to build customer engagement. A further 28% are planning to do this.
• Companies who are either using or planning to use mobile as part of their customer lifecycle marketing, for broader CRM, for user-generated content or location-based marketing are also in the minority.
• Companies generally attribute their lack of inertia when it comes to integrating the mobile channel to a lack of resources (51%), although there are other widely cited reasons including lack of skills / experience / understanding, and lack of a sound business case.

This article today on eMarketer.com cites research into mobile coupon redemption (chart pictured in this post) suggesting real “hockey stick” growth after 2011.  The article also mentions consumers tend to be less interested in couponing than in using their mobile devices for product research “on the go” – such as “scanning images or bar codes with their mobile phone to get more information or coupons for a product.”

That quote is interesting in light of another article, this one about Google again making a move into QR, or Quick Response codes.  QR codes are two dimensional bar codes that when scanned with the camera function of a Smartphone present a variety of information about the code – the company or store it represents, links to a website or any number of details helpful to a consumer, including special offers or coupons.  Google’s strategy is to place 100,000 QR code stickers in businesses across the U.S., all of which do not require specialized software – a limiting factor in prior trials of QR codes which often required proprietary reader software.

Google’s efforts are well aligned with trends suggesting consumers are more interested in product research than coupons – even if QR codes can serve both purposes.  Widespread QR adoption may be just what retailers are seeking, based on this article today from Retailwire.com.  Although coupons are a logical mobile application, this viewpoint reveals the “necessary evil” aspect to couponing:

“The downside of mobile coupons is the back-end cost of redemption, which makes a successful promotion increasingly expensive.  Coupons are also the most basic of triggers for shopper engagement, with little long-term loyalty benefit.”

The article poses the question, “what’s next?” and goes on to suggest retailers build mobile strategies geared around an enhanced shopping experience, in and outside the store.  It’s apparent that retailers will benefit most from strategies geared around creating positive mobile customer experiences for their customers.

Widespread QR codes are just one element that will help connect consumers with retailers in value added ways – including couponing – but the greatest value will stem from targeting customers at the point of device to drive sales, cultivate loyalty or increase brand affinity – otherwise called Active Customer Engagement.

Similar to what we described in our Point of View on Active Customer Engagement and this actual customer example, email, web and mobile communications work together as part of a larger effort consisting of media buys supporting a promotion.  It isn’t apparent that the retailer had access to a system encapsulating all the components required to configure, execute and measure the program, but you can be certain if it did, ROI would have been greater.

A tidal wave of buzz is building around Active Customer Engagement, as illustrated by another recent article outlining the solution here on the Illinois Technology Association website.  Today as well, we were featured in a brief article titled, “Time to market with mobile” at brand-e.biz in which we say the following that gets to the heart of what Active Customer Engagement’s value is all about:

“What should drive mobile marketing investments is a strategy which focuses on the customer experience, what you want to achieve with your customers.  Developing ideal mobile paths for your customers to follow to achieve your goals should yield the best results…And in practice this will almost always mean some combination of text message interactions, mobile applications, mobile optimized web and even e-mail.”

The article describes three “divides” that will make it difficult for 2010 to be the vaunted “year of mobile.”  I propose a fourth divide but first the three cited.   One is a knowledge and resource gap facing marketers; both in terms of best practices but also how to gauge success.  The second is the delta between consumers with multi-media savvy Smartphones versus those without.  The third is potentially most troubling for marketers; a gap between consumer preference or responsiveness to mobile advertising and the amount of dollars and efforts flowing into a form of mobile marketing especially in vogue now given Google’s high profile acquisition of AdMob.

“As consumers’ usage of mobile devices has grown more sophisticated, their attitudes toward mobile marketing have become more negative.  BIGresearch’s ‘Simultaneous Media Usage’ study indicates that relative to last year, more consumers now dislike receiving text ads, video ads, and text voicemail ads, and more feel that mobile ads constitute an invasion of privacy.”

It is for this reason a fourth gap exists which will challenge the mobile marketing industry in 2010 – confusion between advertising and Active Customer Engagement (or more generally targeting customers in the mobile channel).  Although mobile and online ad networks will garner much press over the coming months, marketers who approach mobile as an interaction channel and map their marketing strategies appropriately should achieve the best results.

It’s easy to buy a keyword or place a banner in a mobile application or website, but it’s an entirely different challenge and likely more rewarding one to call customers to action at the point of device.

• Vendor Lines Blurring but One Thing is Clear: Active Customer Engagement
• Retailers Succeeding with Active Customer Engagement…Even if they call it M-Commerce
• Establishment Converges on Active Customer Engagement
• Active Engagement Comes to Life for Mobile Marketers!

You can view video excerpts of Jeff here on our YouTube channel, but I also wanted to highlight a few notable aspects to the presentation:

(1) To help audience participants get started on the right path with mobile, we offered a Mobile Strategy Starter Kit which could be accessed via a text message interaction.  Text the word BMA to 50101 to be sent a link to the kit, which features step by step instructions for getting started as well as answers to many of the common questions asked by marketers around mobile.

(2) The concept of “engagement” was introduced as a way of showing how much greater an opportunity mobile represents for marketers to reach their customers relative to other mediums.  It is consistent with our view of Active Customer Engagement as the killer application for the mobile channel.

(3) The presentation also featured an example of in-application advertising, all the rage currently due to the acquisition of AdMob by Google.  Our work with Newser was featured.

Titled “2009 Really Isn’t the Year of Mobile” the article points to factors like the small ad spend in mobile relative to search, the limited number of iPhone users versus the overall population, a lack of killer applications, and an inconsistent mobile web experience as reasons 2009 isn’t mobile’s year.

Even as these barriers are breached, the debate will continue unless marketers identify less with “mobile” as they do “marketing effectively to active customers who happen to be interfacing with them using a mobile device.”  It is a lot easier to hone in on limitations and innovations around specific mobile technologies and marketing techniques, than it is to bring all available means to creating intelligent, thoughtful and relevant customer interactions that happen to occur at the point of device.

I would argue that before any of the factors cited in the article are overcome, marketers must begin viewing the mobile channel in this manner.  Unless mobile marketing technology providers offer the right solutions to shape this perception, the question of whether mobile has arrived will continue to be debated.

Many marketers are entering the mobile arena with a similar view on text messaging.  As has been widely reported, investments in SMS marketing campaigns are often driven by curiosity with a focus on trial.  The same could be argued around the market for mobile applications.  A hard monetary return is often thus not considered as important in a buy decision as the price of the product or service — just like commodities, yet unlike household products, you could say mobile is a “hot commodity” right now with plenty of demand to go around the ecosystem of suppliers.

Once the unbridled enthusiasm around mobile begins to ebb and is replaced by more rational, measured decision making, how will this affect the market for mobile marketing technology products and services?
 
There are two probable outcomes in my view: buyers will gravitate toward the big “brands” from which they source marketing products and services — the well known, long established multi-disciplinary providers who have tacked on a mobile capability to their offerings. Why?  Simply because it will represent a low cost, safe choice from a trusted company.

AdMob is not an example of what I’m talking about.  Advertising, especially online advertising, has established metrics for valuing such services (CTR, CPM).  Once significant scale is achieved, as happened with AdMob, the blend of metrics with scale makes for a highly valued prize.

The other outcome should offer buyers a better, higher value choice, independent of price.  Providers which combine scale, metrics and more, will enable marketers to leverage the mobile channel in ways that a commodity choice never can match — via Active Customer Engagement.  I’m of course talking about the Mobile Customer Experience, inclusive of all means of targeting customers at the point of device and calling them to action based on marketing objectives which are measurable.

Marketers able to see the distinction, and not fixate on mobile as an adjunct to email or a novel handset application, will be more successful than their peers.

Whether this happens or not depends upon whether Google’s offering around text message ads today falls short of the ideal solution.  At first, the best candidates would seem to be those who have already developed an ad network, yet in practice the value of a network relative to the technology to serve, track and measure SMS advertising should be greater.

Why do I say that?  Because unlike display ads in an iPhone application or on a website, SMS text ads are different – they align with interactive message flows between businesses and their customers.  They don’t live or render on an application interface or webpage waiting for someone to see them.  That is fundamentally a different advertising application even if at first blush it seems the same as display ads or hyperlinks appended to search results and among company websites participating in an ad network.

If Google does make a move into text messaging, it will be interesting to see who they buy and what they hope to obtain by doing so.  Players in the space are angling for a shot at being bought, if you read between the lines of vendor comments here.  Should they take the plunge, it will most certainly align the company closer with the exciting new area of Active Customer Engagement.

Yet that is precisely what technology futurists imagine will become of mobile devices within two years.  This November 4, 2009 article in the New York Times, titled “What Your Phone Might Do for You Two Years From Now” is filled with fascinating examples of how mobile devices may completely replace today’s traditional desktop, laptop and netbook computers.  From Microsoft’s perspective, this cannot be good news.

While devices may look the same in the near future, significant advances are coming in energy efficient processors, battery life, screen technologies and software, all of which will transform today’s iPhone into a comparative toy.  Foldable screens, displays with tactile response, voice recognition, more powerful integrated cameras, GPS, global databases of geographic information, and peer to peer networking will provide a mobile experience very different from what is possible today.

“Just imagine a device with an 8-inch fold-out screen, a big virtual keyboard for easy text input, numerous sensors to detect your surroundings, and software smart enough to anticipate your needs and sharp enough to respond to conversational commands.”

“Open up the device, point it at the street and ask it to show you what the place looked like 200 years ago, and it offers a photo or video. Ask it where to eat lunch and it highlights a restaurant that suits your tastes. If you are heatedly debating food choices with a companion when someone of marginal importance tries to call you, the phone will know better than to interrupt.”

These are not just “pie in the sky” predictions but rather very real examples of how technologies under development right now and about to be launched are taking shape.  The mobile customer experience is influencing the direction of mobile technologies overall, more so than any one element.  Marketers wise enough to recognize this should partner with firms focused as much on marketing effectiveness within the mobile channel as any one tactic or technology.

The article reports on happenings at a marketing technology platform vendor event.  Based on the following observations by the author, I would suggest we are seeing a living example of the convergence I wrote about here:

“It seems that many vendors today are getting into more integrated technology offerings, as well as services, blurring the lines between an e-mail marketing company, a search company, a mobile company, and even an ad agency.”

“As technology vendors become more services focused, they compete with the traditional agencies and interactive ad folks. The rules are no longer set.”

“We are going to see more of these blurring of the lines as brand marketers are focused on driving ROI across channels wherever a customer is.”

“I think this approach to data driven marketing is what we will be seeing more of, as well as this attention to a cross channel approach.”

As marketers orient themselves around targeting increasingly active, on the go customers, they best align themselves with firms focused from their inception on the mobile customer experience.  Retrofitting advanced mobile interaction techniques to products created without a focus on active customer engagement will not likely serve a marketer’s objectives very well.

I wasn’t aware of many statistics such as these which show retailers are taking to the mobile channel very aggressively, learning a lot as they go along:

“There are 112 retailers, 58 in the Internet Retailer Top 500, with 153 m-commerce sites and/or apps.”

“North American mobile commerce sales will top $750 million this year, according to new data from emerging technologies consulting firm ABI Research.”

“Retailers in mobile commerce report consumers are not just browsing or comparing prices, they’re buying—and sales are growing. EBay, for example, reported a whopping $380 million in sales through its iPhone app and m-commerce site for the first nine months of 2009.”

“EBay’s mobile site and app combined received 5.4 million unique monthly visitors in August, according to The Nielsen Co. Amazon.com received nearly 3.5 million, Gamespot about 2.5 million, Fandango nearly 2.4 million and Netflix just over 2.2 million.”

E-commerce technology vendors are apparently scrambling to meet increasing demand for systems which can extend traditional online stores to the mobile channel.  In spite of all this action, I can’t help but question using such a loaded term as “M-Commerce” to describe the benefit to retailers.  Particualrly in light of statements like this:

“77% of retail chains see high value in mobile commerce as a way to connect the online world with physical stores, according to a new study from Retail Systems Research.  Store-based retailers view mobile as an opportunity to connect their various channels.”

“We’ve found that the mobile site is driving sales in stores…It’s keeping some customers in stores longer by giving them all this information at their fingertips.”

“…it’s still early days for mobile commerce, and most retailers are not revealing revenue figures, a sign that sales directly through the phone remain relatively modest.  But the retailers that have jumped into m-commerce are learning valuable lessons about the best designs for mobile phones, how to market to consumers through mobile devices, and the special opportunity to tie the mobile phone—which most consumers carry with them always—with in-store shopping.”

So it would seem that early adopter retailers are letting the mobile customer experience drive their approach to achieving their goals – commerce and transactions among them.  A Gartner Group Research chart in the article, shown in this post, supports that conclusion.

When retailers report mobile commerce revenue separately from other channels, as Ebay recently began doing, that is one case.  However, I suspect most retailers stand to gain the greatest benefit by viewing mobile as a powerful channel to influence consumer behavior in revenue and profit producing ways.  It’s more of a marketing problem, than of figuring out how to arm customers with mobile cash registers.  It’s about active customer engagement.

I thought the most actionable takeaway for retailers was around the urgency in moving on a mobile strategy, but doing so thoughtfully to avoid fixating on one tactic or approach, such as a mobile commerce website or application.

“Retailers must decide when—not if—they will launch m-commerce sites or apps, says m-commerce analyst Ian Fogg in a Forrester Research Inc. report titled ‘Why Mobile’s Time Has Come.’  Failure to pick the right approach now will lead to others seizing control of the new landscape that extends to every minute of consumers’ lives, 24/7.”

“Basic skills needed for mobile commerce are roughly similar to those required in e-commerce…But there are whole new sets of skills required, such as ones for developing text message marketing and mobile apps, that I.T. and other departments must research in-house or in conjunction with vendors.”

• Active Customer Engagement Comes to Life for Mobile Marketers
• Retail and Consumer Products Companies Must Confront the Mobile Challenge
• What’s up next for Hooters? Reality “Augmentation”?
• The Death of Email…Long Live Email!
• The question of branded versus syndicated mobile applications for retailers
• A definitely not “wet behind the ears” retail example of Mobile Marketing Strategy
• Retailers Focused on Customer Experience Need to Consider Mobile