2010 will be the year that mobile marketing is all grown up. All key stakeholders are on board – consumers are buying smartphones and rapidly experimenting with new applications, developers are churning out applications that deliver more value than gimmick, brands finally realize mobile can help them influence consumers at point of sale, and marketers see a cost-effective channel to deliver targeted communications. Everyone’s excited.
Just look at a handful of the mobile companies that are gaining attention to see what the future of mobile will look like:
- ENTERTAIN & CONNECT: Foursquare is a location-based social community allowing users to to explore and learn more about their city. And retailers have a lot to gain as consumers create their own loyalty programs. Read Tony Felice’s “Six marketing opportunities on Foursquare” to see how it works.
- SHOP: mShopper allows you to instantly price check an item you want to buy, and then purchase that item to be shipped to your house right from your phone.
- PAY: Mocapay allows users to pay for purchases in places like restaurants or other quick-service locations using their phone. You can even load gift or loyalty cards on the phone to use when you need them
- DONATE: mGive focuses on making mobile fundraising easy and effective, and has received recent acclaim from its amazing work to raise money for Haiti disaster relief. See mGive’s mobile donation Haiti case study.
For more of my 2010 outlook for mobile marketing and how businesses can climb on board, see my Denver Business Journal article “Reach your on-the-go consumers by mobile media“. The intro two paragraphs are below:
It’s not hard to see that mobile phones represent the next big marketing channel. There are nearly 7 billion people on the planet and 4 billion mobile phones, an adoption rate considerably higher than that of even the Internet.
Mobile devices represent a win-win for marketers and consumers. Marketers receive access to a medium that’s always turned on and at a consumer’s side, from wake-up to bedtime. No other medium offers such constant engagement. Continue reading article online here. Or download the newspaper PDF.
Filed under: Best Practice Tips, Compelling Datapoints, Exciting News Tagged: | mobile
