We know that Smartphone use is on the rise and with it comes more people reading emails on their mobile. Market research firm Nielsen condensed all time spent on the mobile internet into one hour and found nearly half of it was spent on email.  This is a very telling statistic because it goes beyond corporate, Blackberry-centric, email use to include consumers accessing Hotmail, Yahoo and Gmail via their devices. 

That’s important as Blackberries, despite their generally justified status as a workplace productivity hero, are hopeless at handling the sort of HTML emails that marketers deploy. Images are off, links are exposed and the whole point of creating email eye-candy is defeated. I’m confident this will be sorted out shortly but it’s the current reality. And it’s one that has driven the existing mobile email paradigm.

The Current State of Mobile Email

Marketers that do created ‘mobile friendly’ versions of their emails (and, if we’re being candid, most still don’t) typically take the following approach: In the pre-header of the email there’s a link saying something like ‘On a mobile device? Click here’. Clicking on that link will do one of two things – take the recipient to a text only version or take them to a mobile web page recreating the richer HTML experience. The latter is clearly more favourable from a branding + presentation POV.

iPhones and Android devices do a much better job handling HTML emails. Images are displayed, for starters. But email design is web-centric.  Multi-column emails are common and with mobile’s smaller screen sizes lead to tiresome side to side scrolling. It’s a cumbersome reading experience.

According to the PEW Internet & American Life Project, 34% of all cell phone owners have sent or received an email on their device. This number is slightly higher than the percentage of cell phone owners that have Smartphones but is conclusive enough to confidently say, at a minimum, “Smartphone users = mobile email user.”

With Smartphone penetration set to overtake feature phones in the next year or two and only continue upward, the implication should be clear: The approach to email marketing needs to evolve to account for changing consumer consumption patterns and expectations.

Your emails are being viewed on devices you haven’t designed and tested for and in contexts than a web-centric email approach simply doesn’t account for leading to lost opportunities to capture interest.

Making Email Work for the Mobile Consumer
 
To make your email marketing programs work harder and extract more value out of each interaction with a mobile consumer, there are three dimensions to address: Design, Content, and Destinations. 

1.    Design
Consider a design template that’s if not mobile-first, than at least mobile-sensitive. Employ a single column layout consistent with mobile screen dimensions to remove unnecessary pinching, zooming and scrolling and to focus reader attention.  A vertical scroll motion allows for a more natural email reading experience, especially on a mobile device. 

Think about larger fonts, bigger call to action button, and more minimalist colour palettes with high contrast between design elements. Your design should make it extremely easy for recipients to differentiate content elements and provide intuitive, obvious action elements that account for a user who will be grazing information rather than reading deeply. 

I’d also recommend keeping a text only or mobile web optimized version linked from the pre-header. Many Blackberry users will still need this and it’s good practice to be inclusive of all customers in your design (that’s why you’re looking at a mobile-centric design in the first place, after all). 

2.    Content
Mobile email readers will be looking for focussed, attention grabbing content.  Consumption will most likely happen during brief moments of downtime. 

Combine on-the-go relevance with actionable information with a very sharp editing pencil. Clear but attention grabbing calls to action are at an even greater premium in a mobile context.   This may involve rethinking your content organization as the mobile consumer is best served by information that satisfies moments of inspiration or need vs. contemplation.  The best advice is “don’t overdo it”. Information overload will lead to session abandonment as quickly as a poorly designed email. Brevity and clarity will show you’re sensitive to demands on a recipient’s time and attention.

There’s a lot to be gained from allowing recipients to specify ‘web’ or ‘mobile’ versions as well. Knowledge of how they’ll be viewing your emails can give you a glimpse into how content should be prioritized.

3.    Destinations
This is the most important piece. There is no point optimizing design and content for mobile consumption if someone clicks on a link (that’s what you likely want them to do, right?) only to end up on a desktop web experience. All your hard work will be lost.

Building your mobile web destination involves the same content and design sensibilities you’ve applied to your emails.  There’s a lot to be said on this topic and I outlined a foundational lens in a previous post, “Making the Mobile Web a Friendlier Place”. [Stay tuned for a follow up piece on content approaches to your mobile web presence...]

Once you’ve locked down a mobile friendly design, content and destination approach, there are a couple other considerations that can impact your open and engagement rates:

•    Send times: Mobile email consumption is more likely going to be in snatched moments of downtime or media multi-tasking. Consider when those are going to be for your customer. Better yet, allow customers to state when they would like to receive your emails.

•    Cross-channel opt-ins: Mobile email can be a great way to nurture customers into mobile CRM extensions. Provide mechanisms for users to opt-in to SMS programming. Enable coupon redemption by having device ‘show and save’ or ‘show and scan’ capabilities. Push customers to your mobile apps or other content downloads such as videos or wallpapers.

Now, rather than being a ‘blinders on’ promoter of mobile, I’m realistic in that not all marketers need a mobile friendly email program. You may be able to survive without it depending on your audience demographics. Teen and Older demographics are probably not a mobile email/Smartphone sweet spot. But if your customer base includes urban consumers, 18-45, there’s a good chance you have a growing segment that will expect a tailored, even optimized, experience no matter when or how they happen to view your emails.

At Digital Cement, we're focused on digital direct marketing. As part of articulating our POV on how specific digital channels can be used in effect customer acquisition efforts, I wrote a whitepaper on mobile as a direct marketing channel.

Here's the intro to give you a flavour for the paper's scope and focus:

Your customers are moving targets. You work hard to get their attention – at home, at work, shopping, going to the movies and out at other public place and events.  The challenge is that it’s hard to know where they are at any given time and whether they’re receptive to what you have to offer.

So imagine if these elusive customers would not only share their locations with you, but also grant you permission to deliver what they need or want when it’s most useful and relevant to them.

Solving customer problems and inspiring customer action anywhere and anytime, but especially at times when your customers need it most, is the promise of mobile marketing. It is also the power of mobile as a direct marketing channel.

Outlined below is a foundation for successfully using mobile in your direct marketing mix. It begins by appreciating three mobile attributes that have shaped customer expectations. Then, it outlines how you can use what you know about your customers to give them a reason and a way to take your brand with them.

This is not a paper for marketers waiting to be convinced that mobile has arrived.

This is a paper for marketers who know that customers would rather lose their wallet than their phone.

I go on to cover:
1.    Mobile's Triple Play - Connectivity, Context and Relevance
2.    Understanding Customer Habits and Preferences
3.    Building Mobile Destinations
4.    Giving Customers a Reason to Visit
5.    Driving Customers to your Destinations
6.    Understanding Customer Activity

The paper is a survey of these areas rather than an exhaustive treatise.  It's meant to provide thought starters for deploying mobile marketing programs in a way that sets the foundation for sustainable growth and verifiable success framed by a customer-centric approach.

You can find the paper here.

Hope you find it interesting and useful. Feedback, as always, is welcome.

What’s your mobile marketing strategy? Don’t have one? You’re not alone.

Recent research by Forrester found that 57% from a survey pool of 200 global companies either didn’t have one or only in the early stages of developing their mobile strategy. 

If you do have a mobile strategy, that’s excellent. The question then is how you are going to continue to evolve your mobile programming and adapt to emerging technology opportunities and changes in customer habits, preferences, expectations, device use and build on insights from all the data you’ve generated. 

Defining and maturing your mobile strategy requires a thoughtful and diligent approach if you want to deliver genuine and recurring value to your customers and maximize ROI.  It’s more than just porting your web strategy. There are new customer behaviours to understand.  Different dynamics for acquisition, engagement, conversion and retention activities are in play.  Benefits and costs for each mobile tactical channels – advertising, web, apps, SMS, etc... – need to be weighed. A new measurement and analytics process has to be established. 

Digital Cement wants to help you through that process.

We’ve developed the Mobile Maturity Diagnostic so marketers can self-assess the progress of their mobile marketing efforts and gather insight into sustainable and sensible program evolution. 

We’re deliberately channel-agnostic. You won’t find out whether you should use SMS or build an app, for example. Those decisions are unique to every company, brand or targeted customer segment. What you will find out are the steps you can take to make sure you have the right framework for making those decisions.

We’ve broken out mobile strategy into 6 categories:
•    Audience Management
•    Marketing Planning
•    Marketing Implementation
•    Media Management
•    Data + Measurement
•    Integration

Each category asks you to align yourself to the descriptive statement closest to your activity level. Have fun with it. Check out each of the statements as they’ll give you insight into the road ahead.

As you progress through each section, we’ll tally up your score and at the end you’ll receive a snapshot of your mobile maturity status and some prescriptive guidance for next steps.

The Diagnostic has a web and touch screen mobile optimized versions. You can try the mobile version by directing your iPhone, Android or other webkit browsers to the same URL as the website: http://www.digitalcement.com/mobile_ready.

We’re looking at this tool as something that evolves as brand mobile marketing sophistication evolves so your feedback on the content is definitely welcome.

If you’re interested in learning more about how Digital Cement can assist you in developing your mobile marketing roadmap, there’s a form on the site or contact me directly at jdunn@digitalcement.com

What’s your mobile marketing strategy? Don’t have one? You’re not alone.

Recent research by Forrester found that 57% from a survey pool of 200 global companies either didn’t have one or only in the early stages of developing their mobile strategy. 

If you do have a mobile strategy, that’s excellent. The question then is how you are going to continue to evolve your mobile programming and adapt to emerging technology opportunities and changes in customer habits, preferences, expectations, device use and build on insights from all the data you’ve generated. 

Defining and maturing your mobile strategy requires a thoughtful and diligent approach if you want to deliver genuine and recurring value to your customers and maximize ROI.  It’s more than just porting your web strategy. There are new customer behaviours to understand.  Different dynamics for acquisition, engagement, conversion and retention activities are in play.  Benefits and costs for each mobile tactical channels – advertising, web, apps, SMS, etc... – need to be weighed. A new measurement and analytics process has to be established. 

Digital Cement wants to help you through that process.

We’ve developed the Mobile Maturity Diagnostic so marketers can self-assess the progress of their mobile marketing efforts and gather insight into sustainable and sensible program evolution. 

We’re deliberately channel-agnostic. You won’t find out whether you should use SMS or build an app, for example. Those decisions are unique to every company, brand or targeted customer segment. What you will find out are the steps you can take to make sure you have the right framework for making those decisions.

We’ve broken out mobile strategy into 6 categories:
•    Audience Management
•    Marketing Planning
•    Marketing Implementation
•    Media Management
•    Data + Measurement
•    Integration

Each category asks you to align yourself to the descriptive statement closest to your activity level. Have fun with it. Check out each of the statements as they’ll give you insight into the road ahead.

As you progress through each section, we’ll tally up your score and at the end you’ll receive a snapshot of your mobile maturity status and some prescriptive guidance for next steps.

The Diagnostic has a web and touch screen mobile optimized versions. You can try the mobile version by directing your iPhone, Android or other webkit browsers to the same URL as the website: http://www.digitalcement.com/mobile_ready.

We’re looking at this tool as something that evolves as brand mobile marketing sophistication evolves so your feedback on the content is definitely welcome.

If you’re interested in learning more about how Digital Cement can assist you in developing your mobile marketing roadmap, there’s a form on the site or contact me directly at jdunn@digitalcement.com

A recent report from dotMobi has documented the staggering rise in the number of mobile websites in the past two years.

From 2008 to 2010 the number of mobile compatible websites grew from 150,000 to 3.01 million. For the stats hungry playing along at home, that’s apparently a 2000% increase. Yes. 2000%.

Of the Alexa.com top 1000 sites, 40.1% are mobile friendly as are 29.7% of the top 10,000. There’s more info here on the report if you’re interested.

This is all very good. I’m firmly in the camp that argues brands need to have a distinct mobile version of their web presence to ensure positive experiences for their customers. Browsing on the mobile web is a different beast from web browsing. Along with the unique capabilities and design parameters native to mobile devices, customer habits and expectations are different when they’re browsing on their mobile phone.

If you’re reading this closely, however, you’ll notice I used the phrases ‘mobile compatible’ and ‘mobile friendly’ to characterize the findings from the study. At first pass, these may seem like minor variations of the same thing – a matter of preference, really. I believe they’re not and that’s why I want to issue a call for some standardization - or at least consistency - around mobile website description [read on to find out why...].

I’ve found there are 4 main ways mobile websites are described:

•    Mobile Accessible
•    Mobile Compatible
•    Mobile Friendly
•    Mobile Optimized

In most cases, these terms are used fairly interchangeably.

If you’re asking “what difference does it make,” consider this: Any HTML website could be ‘mobile accessible’ if it displays fully on a mobile browser (vs. any site using Flash which won’t work on nearly all phones). However, a  website designed only with PC browsing in mind will be poorly formatted for the mobile screen, require significant and unnecessary user actions to discover relevant content and will likely have a massive amount of content which is simply irrelevant to a mobile browsing customer...to name just some of the problems.

A ‘mobile accessible’ website is unlikely how you want your company to be portrayed and perceived or the type of experience you want to serve up to your customers.

In the interests of injecting greater precision into the conversation around mobile web experiences, I’ve drafted the following mobile website segmentation.  Let’s consider this a baseline definition exercise, open to revision as technology and mobile experience sophistication evolves.

1.    Mobile Accessible

A mobile ‘accessible’ site is one where a visitor can get all the content and all design elements are displayed.  However, the design and content strategy is indistinct from the PC version and the mobile browsing experience is poor or frustrating.

Example: Do a random Google search on your phone and take your pick.

2.    Mobile Compatible

A mobile ‘compatible’ site is one that is formatted for mobile browsers/browsing. It uses mobile friendly programming languages and a design approach that exploits mobile gestures and minimizes content load times.  There is a content architecture that considers a mobile customer’s context, interest and intent.  Your site is hosted as a sub domain on your primary URL and device detection should be implemented to recognize mobile users. Some search and/or sharing features are also in place. Mobile-specific analytics are in place to track site performance and customer behaviour.

Good Example: http://m.cnn.com

3.    Mobile Friendly

A mobile ‘friendly’ site is one that builds on the mobile-centric design, content and analytics practices begun in the mobile ‘compatible’ category. Device detection has definitely been added to deliver versions that cater to the unique screen size and processing capabilities of the many distinct operating systems and screen types and sizes available.  Search and social sharing features are tightly integrated and resolve themselves in an equally mobile friendly way. Transactional capabilities and/or account authentication that allows for a personalized experience (if relevant to your business) have been implemented. There is also a customer feedback or support mechanism.

Good Example: http://m.bestbuy.com

4.    Mobile Optimized

A mobile ‘optimized’ website takes all the best practices from mobile ‘friendly’ design and layers in features that are only available with certain programming languages (HTML 5 in particular) to access supported advanced device capabilities (HD content, location, camera, accelerometer, etc...) to deliver a rich and immersive experience. 

Good Example: http://m.youtube.com
(Built w. HTML5. Not currently taking advantage of all the capabilities but a good place to watch for innovation).

A couple other notes:

•    For the time being at least, any site using Flash is not mobile anything. True, some operating systems and devices do support Flash but it still bogs down the browsing experience and is not yet ready for mobile primetime.
•    Pinch and zoom should not be considered an acceptable user gesture. It is at best a stop gap excuse for mobile accessible sites still figuring out their design and content strategy. It is clumsy and asks already fickle mobile customers to do far too much to get where they want to go.

Those who know more about mobile programming than I seem to be in favour of HTML5 becoming the de facto mobile web programming standard.  However, that means this segmentation automatically precludes most of the best mobile websites around today from being more than ‘mobile friendly’.

Frankly, that’s okay. I think being ‘mobile friendly’ is a great place to be and if we had most marketers pushing for ‘mobile friendly’ status the mobile universe would be vastly improved.  Mobile ‘optimized’ is such a strong term that it should remain a stretch target allowing for evolution and revolution that takes full advantage of device capabilities. 

I hope you’ll join me in adopting this language for describing mobile websites. Consistency in this conversation will help drive up design and experience standards and create reference points for marketers gauging the maturity of their mobile presence.

But first, did I miss any common phrases for describing mobile websites? Do you agree with my characterizations? 

Did you get to the end of this post before checking your own website on your mobile phone...?

During a recent keynote address at the IFA consumer electronics conference in Berlin, Google CEO Eric Schmidt spoke of the “age of augmented humanity”. Grand language aside, the core of this statement is the convergence of massive amounts of knowledge and technology smart enough to operate autonomously enough to anticipate what we want to know and deliver it when we need it.

This will probably trigger all kinds of predictions and warnings about creepy scenarios of computers dominating humans but it has a real world utility as Mr. Schmidt highlights in this example: “When you ask ‘what’s the weather like?’ what you’re really asking is do I wear a raincoat or do I water the plants.”

This kind of contextual relevance has always been a cornerstone of mobile marketing but it’s increasingly relevant as location and activity aware Smartphones earn greater market share.  This is backed up by some stats Mr. Schmidt shared during the same keynote address:

•    1 in 3 queries from Smartphones are now seeking information about nearby places
•    Google’s mobile search traffic grew 50 percent in first half of 2010

What these numbers indicate is that consumers are increasingly porting search activity previously confined to the desktop over to their mobile device and are adding in the layer of solving contextually relevant problems.

But let’s expand on the notion of contextual search and acknowledge that search activities occur outside of the traditional confines of the search engine. Here are a couple of search scenarios that occur within branded environments rather than traditional search engines:

•    I’m looking for a place to eat. Rather than doing a Google search for restaurants, I fire up the Urban Spoon or Yelp apps.
•    I want to see if there’s a Best Buy near me and if they have the case I need for my iPhone. I tap in their URL to my mobile browser, get served up their mobile optimized website and search for the product and the closest location where I can get it.

I could easily outline other scenarios but these two serve the purpose of highlighting two other mobile search behaviours:

•    Activity-specific search enabled by a 3rd party content aggregation application
•    Direct to brand “search” (for a mobile friendly destination) based on aligned and pre-established preferences.

These activities already exist within web behaviour. However, many organizations are not yet optimized to capitalize on this type of discovery via mobile. Not addressing these behaviours can have unfortunate effects on both brand favourability and sales. 

While it’s harder to influence 3rd party apps, you can earn a lot of easy wins by having a mobile version of your website to address clicks out of apps or another 3rd party source and direct to brand searches.

However, consumers are fickle when it comes to mobile browsing. If sites fail to load quickly or it’s hard to find what they’re looking for, they will quickly navigate away and look for other solutions. I can pretty much guarantee that’s happening if your website isn’t mobile optimized (and heaven forbid you’re using flash...warning: link requires high degree of geek).

So what are the steps you can take to ensure you’re capitalizing on mobile search activity?

I’d suggest focussing on three types of outcomes: 1. Ease of discovery; 2. Customer acquisition; 3. Maximizing conversions.

1.    Discovery:
This is the most important activity and should begin with the question: “what happens when someone visits my website on their mobile device?” If the answer is anything other than ‘easily finds what they’re looking for thanks to a mobile-centric design and content strategy’, there’s work to do.

The good news is that it doesn’t have to be overly time- and cost-consuming work.  A well thought out landing page that includes one or two of the most likely mobile actions (or relevant offers) and uses device detection to serve up the mobile version anytime a mobile browser hits the URL may be enough. In the long term, a more fully-formed site will be essential but a focus on addressing the most pressing problems a consumer visiting your site will be looking to solve is a great starting point.

The added advantage of a landing page is you can tailor it to serve as a destination for more concerted acquisition efforts. Or you can build multiple pages to serve unique purposes and campaigns given the lightweight development costs. If you invest proper time and thought in planning your landing page strategy, before you know it you’ll have the core of a robust mobile web experience.

2.    Acquisition:
Having a mobile optimized site will go a long way towards driving down bounce rates and provide a valuable new set of data around device-specific use and general customer mobile preferences. 

At the same time you’re addressing organic discovery, focus efforts on paid discovery. Mobile search is still a tiny sliver in the overall search revenue pie, but it’s a great time to capitalize on the increasing consumer use and the novelty factor.  While volume relative to wired search will be low, we’ve seen higher click-through and conversion rates on the whole.

Mobile search does require a distinct approach. Of course, there’s the post-click experience and device targeting dimensions and Google has done a great job rolling out innovative and compelling mobile-specific ad units that leverage mobile device features.  But you also have to consider the relevance of your offers and copy to the mobile customer as well as how the unique contextual dimensions of mobile will impact your keyword selections. Starting with brand terms is the obvious choice, but you might find that limiting in the mid to longer term.

3.    Conversion:
Most of the common customer conversion best practices from web search still hold true. The new mobile specific dimensions worth mentioning here concern paying attention to streamlining the conversion funnel and ensuring a seamless bridging between any subsequent experiences.

Anything you can do to minimize the number of steps a consumer has to go through to complete the conversion cycle will be to your advantage. This includes data entry fields, number of pages until gratification, and clear and compelling explanations of a customer-centric value exchange.

On the subject of the value exchange, you will do better the more seamlessly you can bridge customers between two (or more) on-device experiences or enable a ‘clicks to bricks’ interaction that can be facilitated or enhanced through mobile use. Some common examples would be a click to a mobile coupon, sign up for a email newsletter that’s mobile optimized, or a push to a mobile download (app, ringtone, wallpaper, etc...).

The final point to consider in extracting the most benefit out of your mobile search activities is thorough use of analytics. Google Analytics, which you are probably already using for your website and web search activities, provides a more than adequate solution for extracting participation and conversion data. It will also allow you to gather insights into customer visits and actions by device or operating systems which will provide actionable insights for future campaign optimization and mobile property development.

The key to getting started in mobile search is to frame your activity with a test and learn mentality and be thoughtful about the end to end experience to minimize friction points for consumers. This will help you develop a sustainable brand presence in the mobile channel and extract an actionable data set.

-JCDunn

Author’s note: This article originally appeared on MobileMarketer.com. While it references a discussion that happened several months ago now, the fundamentals are still all highly relevant for any brand examining their mobile web presence. Enjoy!
------------------------------------------
I sat recently on a panel about mobile marketing analytics at the eMetrics Toronto conference.  It was a wide ranging discussion on marketers’ use of mobile advertising, the mobile web, apps and even SMS, as well as a debate on how mobile campaign success should be defined and measured.

While my fellow panellists and I were not short on opinions, it was an audience comment that struck me as particularly revealing and raised a number of important issues for brands building their mobile web properties.

The comment went something like this:

“We’ve built a number of mobile websites for clients but we find that when mobile users visit the full web version, they stay on that version of the site even when presented with an option to switch to a mobile optimized view.”

Scary stuff if you’re invested in the mobile web space. But let’s unpack this observation a bit as there’s a lot we can learn here.

Now, it wasn’t the right forum to ask a ton of follow up questions and I didn’t get to speak to the gentleman who posed the question after the panel, so I’m going to make a couple of assumptions:

•    The full web version of the site is served up as default regardless of whether the visitor comes from a computer or a mobile phone.
•    Most visitors tracked or referenced had devices with full web capable browsers such as an iPhone or Android device.

There’s also some important information that we just don’t know:

•    Who are the clients in question? What is their business, what are their products or services?
•    How are the full web sites built? Flash heavy? Mostly HTML?
•    How prominently was the ‘mobile view’ link displayed?
•    What is the content being consumed by mobile visitors and how does that compare to a wired visitor?
•    How do mobile visitor site visit times, page views per visit and bounce rates compare to wired visitors?

When I heard the remark, I proposed that this situation actually created a great testing point for him and his clients. Instead of having the full web version set as default for mobile browsers, use device detection and serve up the mobile optimized version and see how many switch to the full web version.

With this type of A/B test, you can now see how a mobile-friendly version impacts content consumption, visit times, page views and bounce rates and then bake that information back into your content strategy and site design.

If your mobile site is already well designed with a data-driven content strategy, you should see improvement across page views and bounce rates. What happens to your visit times will depend more on the content you’re offering and the nature of your business. Is the information ‘snackable’ or response-driven like it would be for a retailer? Or, are you a publisher whose content naturally demands more sustained consumption?

The case for having a mobile site has been well stated elsewhere and there’s plenty of evidence supporting the development of a tailored mobile experience to account for unique mobile behavioral dimensions and device capabilities.

The real outcome of this exchange, for me, was a clear, broad definition of how to road-map your mobile web development from an analytics gathering to development input perspective. Here’s a four-step high level view:

Step 1: Use existing web analytics to gain a view into mobile visitor devices, content preferences and usage patterns.

Step 2: Develop a content strategy based on content preferences and consumption patterns. Develop a design strategy based on device and OS trends. Consider how content consumption relates to a user’s context.

Step 3: Leverage device capabilities (e.g. GPS, accelerometer, camera, and messaging) based on content strategy and contextual relevance. Wherever possible, build in response mechanisms.

Step 4: Test the mobile version against wired web norms and mobile content and design premises using mobile-centric analytics. If behavior fails to validate premises, adjust accordingly.

Just because something is working, doesn’t mean it is delivering maximum performance. A streamlined mobile version of your website will likely do a better job at delivering against KPIs than a full web version viewed on the device. To make sure it does, use the data you already have at your fingertips.

If we accept that consumers, ultimately, choose when and where they interact with your brand, then the goal of marketing is to be there and doing your best to nudge or entice them towards that interaction.

Marketing strategy and media planning are focused on understanding your target consumer:
•    Where they live, work and play;
•    Why do (or would) they care about your product or service;
•    What triggers buying decisions;
•    What media will be most effective reaching that consumer
•    When they interact with that media
•    How to communicate a message or create an experience that leverages that channel’s attributes and resonates with the consumer.

My proposal is that mobile marketing, properly targeted and balanced with genuine customer value, is a hugely underdeveloped and underutilized channel by the majority of brand marketers.

General trends see brand marketing dollars slowly shifting away from traditional media channels like TV and print but they still command the lion’s share of total media spend.  I want to give you three good reasons for accelerating your own brand’s digital shift and embracing mobile as a vital direct to customer channel.

THE HOOK:
Mobile penetration and activity levels are reaching an effective saturation point.  According the CTIA, there are over 285 million wireless subscribers representing over 90% of the total U.S. population.  This is a massive audience.  According to just released data from the Pew Internet & American Life project mobile use continues to grow dramatically year over year.  For example, the % of cell phone owners that had sent or received a text message grew from 65% to 72% between April 2009 and May 2010 and mobile internet access grew from 25% to 38%.

Though mobile feature use varies from channel to channel and demographic to demographic, the bottom line remains the same.  Mobile is increasingly and deeply integrated into the lives of very attractive consumer demographics.

Your customers are on these devices. Is your brand?

THE LINE:
The line with mobile isn’t a single mode of connectivity like television or print but a honeycomb of channels that can operate independently or as bridges between each other.  I count at least nine customer engagement and leverage points within the mobile platform:
1.    Voice
2.    Text and Picture Messaging
3.    Email
4.    Media (video, audio, still photos)
5.    The Internet
6.    Applications
7.    Advertising
8.    Image Recognition
9.    Location

What is most powerful about this connectivity is what mobile offers not just as siloed experiences within these channels but also how they can bridge between each other and enable sharing among peer groups creating powerful trusted referrals.

THE SINKER:
The sinker for mobile, that thing that will add weight to marketing efforts and create the conditions for success (remember you caught fish floating on the surface) is data. Mobile offers a treasure chest of measurement and analytics opportunities. While, admittedly, unified measurement standards are still emerging, marketers who are interested in data-driven decisions and campaign success will find plenty to get excited about.

Each channel (SMS, mobile advertising, mobile internet, etc...) offers its own unique measurement dimensions.  Along with familiar measures such as media response rates, digital property engagement rates and conversion or acquisition rates, you get the added layers of that only mobile can offer such as location, device and granular time-based interaction data.

A good mobile campaign will tell you exactly when, where, and how a customer interacted with your brand experience and in many cases offer the ability to optimize campaigns in-flight to leverage that information.

So if you want to reach, engage and convert target consumers into customers start taking a closer look at mobile. It’s everywhere your customer is.

The always excellent “Do Something” column in Fast Company struck a particularly relevant chord with me this month.  Here’s the lead:

Sending a text or clicking to vote may be the trendy way to help humankind. The question, says Nancy Lublin, is whether such so-called slacktivism really works.

The conclusion is that any kind of activism should be encouraged and some of these efforts, though they require less commitment on the part of participants, have a real and significant impact. Case in point is the massive amount of donations generated via SMS in response to the earthquake in Haiti. The blog Mobile Behaviour points out that this kind of frictionless participation empowers an altruistic impulse that is particularly appealing to GenX and Millennials who are used to immediate gratification and on-demand experience. 

What made this resonate for me is the explicit acknowledgement that understanding nuances in your target consumer’s motivations, habits and preferences is vital for developing solutions that deliver positive returns. 

Younger generations have behaviours that don’t map easily onto credit card donations, door to door solicitations or getting up on Saturday morning to volunteer. That’s not to say these groups aren’t deeply committed to community engagement – they most certainly are – it’s more the model of that engagement is distinct from what has been done before and is engrained in institutional and organization DNA. The good news for brand marketers is that these insights readily extend beyond activism and into the “for profit” world.

Here’s a three-point lens for evaluating how to ‘mobilize’ key demographics like GenX & Y and Millennials (or any consumer really).  Admittedly, each of these should be front and centre in any demand generation/customer acquisition exercise so the comments I’ll make focus on attributes specific to engagement in the mobile channel.

1.    What behaviours or preferences are you leveraging to maximize the relevance of the offer/experience?
Mobile is highly contingent on context. Where someone is and what they are doing at that moment.  Typically there are three response exchanges – reward, inform or entertain. Are you able to offer something that fulfills those needs? Are you able to create a meaningful reason to ask for an opt-in for future communications? How are you positioning your offer to deliver substantial one-off value or recurring utility that will drive repeat engagement?

For those who thrive off instant gratification, knowing that I can send a text message in 10 seconds and contribute $10 towards a relief effort is an immediate validation of my contribution.  If the confirmation also included a running total of all SMS donations I would also gain knowledge of the scope of our efforts.

2.    How are you ensuring you’re reaching customers with the highest conversion probabilities?
This really comes down to a media planning and analytics exercise. Where are your consumers browsing? Which apps are they using? Are you better off bridging from traditional media with SMS or image response activations? What are you doing differently for new customers vs. your existing customers?

You need the data – mobile device penetration, feature use, media consumption patterns, etc... – if you’re going to make informed decisions about how to best allocate your media dollars and optimize your conversion rates.

Though SMS donations resonated with certain groups, your grandmother probably still wants to donate by handing a crisp bill to an official representative of the charity.  An example that might be at either extreme of the spectrum but the core truth holds - Know those differences.

3.    Are you creating as frictionless an experience as possible?
The SMS donations work because it takes seconds and the gratification is instant. Same goes for adding a ribbon to a Twitter profile or donating my Facebook status to a cause. Each of these actions is literally completed with a couple of clicks.

This attitude should be baked into your mobile experiences too. Does you mobile ad click to an optimized website (you’d be surprised how often this isn’t the case)?  Has your app been thoroughly tested to avoid a buggy launch? Does the call to action you’ve integrated into your print ad follow best practices around short codes or 2D bar codes?

If you aren’t diligent, opportunities to tune out will pop up at all points along the experience chain. The focus has to be on driving from acquisition to activation as seamlessly as possible.

The promise of mobility is to make life easier – easier to connect with your social graph, easier to entertain yourself, easier to solve problems ‘out in the world’, easier to stay informed...and so on.  It’s really not about ‘slacking’; it’s about facilitating experiences that maximize impact with minimal disruption.

The CWTA, Canada’s telco regulatory body, has released statistics on Canadian’s text messaging use for 2009. You can get the full low down here but I wanted to pull out a couple highlights:

•    35 Billion peer-to-peer SMS sent in 2009. A 70% increase over 2008

•    In December 2009, we sent an average of 121 million SMS/day
•    1.66 billion SMS were sent and received from short codes. A 54% increase over 2008

These are big numbers by themselves, but it’s the growth that is more striking. SMS often gets forgotten in the hype surrounding the app ecosystem but it’s an important, even foundational, mobile channel for marketers.

The reality is that it’s the most widely used mobile channel and vital for reaching certain high value audiences as the Pew Internet and American Life Project has recently reinforced.

What isn’t clear from these statistics is what combination of more programs and increased participation - either with more individuals opting into SMS marketing or more marketing messages being deployed - is behind the 54% increase of short code SMS.

It’s most likely a combination of the three.

Since any SMS marketing has to be opt-in, it can be a powerful acquisition and direct marketing channel. People who participate in your programs are doing so because you’ve offered something that resonates with them.

Where many SMS initiatives fail is in not thinking through how to capitalize on the permission you’ve gained to create an ongoing value exchange that offers repeat branded communication events or drives a customer-brand interaction.

Nearly all SMS messages are opened – between 90-98% depending on which study you read – so compare that to email open rates when thinking about how to increase the effectiveness or maintain the momentum of your CRM programs.

As the numbers above show, just about everyone’s texting. It’s got reach, familiarity, measurability and a massive variety of activations from the informational to the transactional.

SMS is a foundational tactic for the new direct marketing. Is it in your toolkit?

-Jonathan