MMA officially released a new definition of mobile marketing recently. They say that mobile marketing is "a set of practises that enables organisations to communicate and engage with their audience in an interactive and relevant manner through any mobile device or network".

Insisting that mobile marketing is so much more than spamming people with SMS coupons, MMA discuss the functionality and definition of mobile marketing at the Mobile Marketing Forum, LA.

You can read their press release from the forum here - prnewswire.com.

Before you send any messages its important to think about your engagement strategy from your target audiences perspective. Put yourselves in their shoes, would you like to receive a message saying "We are offering cars for even less, buy now!", no. You need to think outside the box, surprise them and make them feel like you understand them.

How do people achieve this? Here is a quick guide to customer attraction and engagement;

• Create a campaign to attract attention - for example a competition, auction, SMS coupon or other loyalty scheme
• Use Point Of sale, websites, emails, cold calling - anything you can think of to get the word out
• Group your new users by age, geography and interests (campaigns entered of answers to profiling questions)
• Build a promotional campaign to target EACH specific group
• Run your campaign right away or at a more appropriate time

You might be saying at this point, why bother? Because we are seeing an exponential interest in SMS from all areas; retailers, marketers, publishers, broadcasters, hosting companies and many more. The Internet as a whole agrees on one thing - SMS mobile marketing will be widely used. Its success, like so many things, relies on your innovation and persistence and you need to be in it to win it (sorry for the cliché).

HAPPILY we are here to help, get in touch now or sign up for a free trial and have a play, if you get stuck you will have direct access to our support and marketing team.

Good luck with all your marketing campaigns and initiatives.

A Xiam Technologies survey indicated that mobile phone users are having difficulty accessing certain mobile content and how this is a barrier for a number of potential consumers.

80% of US and UK mobile device users at some time have had difficulty accessing mobile content. The major issues included slow search/download times, device issues and interface bugs. A whopping 27% said they could not access mobile content at all.

63% said they wanted to spend money on mobile content if only they could access it. Previous claims that there is not enough content for mobiles is no longer the case. One of the most popular services accessed by mobile users is weather content and apps, closely followed by social networking and games.

I think the key here is don't go mobile until your ready and test your content thoroughly; don't claim to be a mobile content provider until you can provide a version of the service for everyone. The negative attributions of a bold claim and poor delivery can stay with brands for years.

Is Bluetooth a good mobile marketing method? Blismobile claimed their recent promotion was a success with over 205,000 downloads of their new film preview.

Sounds impressive? Not when you learn only 1% of the total commuters exposed to the bluetooth promotion actually downloaded the trailer. Blismobile claimed to use posters and promotions to opt in to this promotion, but in reality it seems they continually spam you with Bluetooth requests until you either download the promotion of turn Bluetooth off. Something else to bear in mind when promoting through Bluetooth; most mobile devices have it turned off to save power and have authentication to prevent unwanted requests.

Bluetooth is sadly a dying mobile marketing strategy and is not as controllable as SMS mobile marketing. The future of Bluetooth seems bleak.

The 2009 Mobile Marketing Forum saw a decrease in attendance this year with only 300 visitors in total. But the atmosphere seemed more positive and competitors less defensive, a sense of collaboration for the greater good - public confidence in mobile marketing.

The forum was held in Sheraton, downtown Los Angeles and offered rich networking opportunities for mobile marketing service providers and specialists. There was a definite theme; how do we overcome the 2009 mobile marketing problems as an industry. Perhaps they have finally learned from the other technical industries such as hosting - global conferences that share valuable information to secure the future of the industry and prevent monopolization. Many people were asking "is this the year of mobile marketing?", clearly the industry leaders still feel mobile marketing has not peaked.

Some of the higher profile attendees included Tom Daly, CO of Coca Cola, and Louis Gump of CNN. The industry will need to be supported by the larger corporations to increase public opinion.

I've said it before and I will say it again people need to be bold and step into the mobile marketing world, it is an untapped resource for branding and service monetisation. Are you sure you can afford to not invest?

Mike Wehrs, President of MMA, unveiled the "Certified Mobile Marketer Program" in Los Angeles this week. The course provides marketers with the skill necessary for mobile marketing careers and increases the validity of mobile marketing as an industry in its own right.

The course is available to individuals and organisations helping them master industry related terminology and mobile marketing campaign management. The program consists of three tiers with courses aimed to produce comprehensive mobile marketing professionals at its conclusion.

Hopefully the spam-like reputation of mobile marketers will be softened by this certification and others like it.

The Brazilian equivalent of Amazon.com, Editoras online, built a very effective strategy using Mobile Marketing in the form of QR codes.

Their employees placed 4000 QR codes at key locations throughout Sao Paola. When people used their mobile handsets to take a picture of the image (including the QR codes) their mobile handset were directed to a strategic selection of Twitter mini blogs they affectionately refer to as their "living book". Each tweet contained a viral call to action leading the reader to their Editoras on-line website.

Their ROI was massive and added to their brand reputation. The full details of their campaign an be seen in this video - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PG4thXVM2qk.

95% of UK digital budgets are said to include mobile marketing. 73% of marketers believe there will be substantial mobile marketing growth over the next 5 years. There is said to have been substantial growth in MMS and video shortcode awareness with only 20% of marketers without any experience in 2009.

Many agencies are expecting to spend more on mobile marketing in the near future and a number already have a solidified mobile marketing strategy. Jon Mew, Head of Mobile at the IAB, said "It's extremely encouraging to see that agencies in the UK are adapting to the changing landscape, allocating bigger budgets to mobile and hiring more specialists to plan mobile campaigns."

An interesting article discussing the various reasons why mobile marketing and advertising has not peaked. Offering rich statistics and full length explanations Mark Jaffe writes with great confidence and knowledge on the subject of mobile advertising. He talks about how personal mobiles are, how they can be highly interactive and the communication ecosystem that can be achieved if you do it right.

All in all Mark is a great blogger and I after chatting to him on-line he is approachable and genuine. I recommend adding him to your RSS reader to keep up with general mobile marketing news.

Source: http://mobilemandala.com

Forrester research suggests that moving from free digital news to paid content is proving more unpopular than expected. The study shows 80% of US consumers will not access the content if it is not free, so its highly likely the UK will follow suit. Reducing readers by 80% means advertising exposure is reduced heavily and their current advertisement income will reach an all time low.

There are other ways to make money from content without loosing the vast majority of your readers. Keep your mobile news content free, instead find a way to encourage your mobile readers to opt into SMS campaigns. One way to do this could be publicising an SMS competition or opinion pole. Once our systems realise they are happy to receive promotional content a profile of each mobile owner will be constructed based on their responses. The profiles can be used to send relevant SMS messages from third parties. How much you charge for direct promotions is up to you, this strategy has and still works for major publishers, for instance Future publishing.

Our experienced team are highly experienced in developing marketing strategies with directors and innovators of business. Contact us to discuss this further.

Charities are loosing out by not using SMS mobile marketing to raise funds, according to mobile payments firm paythru.
The whit paper 'Fundraising issues facing the charity sector, and why the mobile may be able to help' recommends that all charities should consider the personal approach that SMS offers to potentially 72 million mobile devices in the UK. The report also discusses other factors obstructing charities from reaching their potential. It seems charities are too reliant on existing donors, an absence of new regular donors during the recession and loosing regular donors as consumerism becomes the priority.

The study shows how SMS can open the door to younger generations encouraging impulse donations driven be television advertisements, media and web publications. Paythru claim the time to promote through mobile is now.

Research shows that tanning salons are loosing credibility with recent accusations surrounding sunbeds and the increased risk of skin cancer. As a result more and more competing salons have turned to SMS mobile marketing to communicate the truth about sunbeds and inject positivity into their brand.

Businesses like tanning salons are perfect for this type of marketing as they have regular contact with their customers, their business relies on local trade and they can promote SMS campaigns at Point Of Sale. SMS mobile marketing is a lot more diverse than people think and the interactivity and impressionability can potentially separate you from your competition.

Social networking is one of the fastest-growing activities among mobile users domestically and worldwide, so marketers must follow the eyeballs and develop a mobile social strategy. It is the primary way people communicate with each other in 2009. Younger people are using technology to improve their friendships and grow their social networks on and off line.

SMS mobile marketing is still a very valid way to offer targeted promotions to the younger generations, current research shows that social networks are more tolerant of promotions and anything on their mobile phone is both opened and read more than email and social media sites.

"I have an iPhone and thank God for that. One of my colleagues has a BlackBerry and I borrowed it for a story I was writing. It was the most miserable times of my life." say Gizelle of mobilenewsleader.com. He claims it took over one hour to download the BlackBerry app world, the Internet was slow, and the app he was reviewing took 15 minutes to download.

It seems that BlackBerry in functionality terms is more like a PC than a smart phone. Gizelle recommends using an iPhone over the BlackBerry.

Rapper Gucci Mane is using mobile to promote his new album, "The State vs. Radric Davis." Using twitter to advertise his shortcode and keyword Gucci tweeted "Txt DecemBURR to 484848 to hear a preview of 'Worst Enemy' from The State Vs Radric Davis, new album in stores DecemBURR 8th - RT!". Once again another example of leveraging the social media networks to achieve hype and promote mobile marketing campaigns.

To achieve this as an SME set up a twitter account and from the offset offer a link on your site and use it to support your customers. Once you have a number of customers following you and you know they are interested in your promotions you can set up a campaign with a keyword and a shortcode, why not try this with our SMS mobile marketing free trial.

NFC or Near Field Communications is a short range wireless communication technology covering a range of approximately 100 centimetres. It is said that 1 in 6 mobile phone users will regularly use NFC by 2014. It offers significant benefits for businesses and mobile marketers with the ability to allow POS promotions through mobile phones.

There are some sales and promotional opportunities for mobile marketers, for instance offering loyalty rewards in the form of mobile vouchers for regular shoppers or perhaps referral scheme promotions.

Japan has taken to the technology without hesitation but it seems western society won't be ready till 2014 for the NFC payment revolution.

FL interactive have Internet and mobile rights for 80 football clubs in The Football League, Premier League and Football Conference. Kieran Kilbride said "FLi is one of the largest football networks in Europe and its websites receive more than 120 million advertising impressions every month. This is a great opportunity for the right company to make a connection with our network's six million individual users."

The Text Works is not in a position to offer anything other than SMS mobile marketing so our vote goes to Piri Ltd. Piri offer WAP and SMS services with the added value of experienced support to implement, optimise and monetise mobile marketing campaigns and initiatives.

Whoever applies for this tender needs to be able to deal with a huge volume of WAP/mobile internet and SMS traffic. How they want to implement mobile marketing and what they expect to achieve from their campaign is not clear.

Google announced acquisition of Admob, a mobile display advertising specialist, for $750 million ($450 million).

Research has shown the Apple's iPhone and Google's Android access the mobile web substantially more than other mobile devices. Admob was established in 2006 and boasts working with Coca Cola, Ford and Procter & Gamble.

Reference: Google turns to mobile

Mobilemarketingwatch.com released an article about the recent study by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA). It showed that SMS marketing users want to have more control over the messages they receive. The studies aims were to quantify the issues surrounding the "unwritten rules of engagement" within the realm of SMS promotions.

Companies levering SMS to promote brands are not being clear enough about the opt in process the DMA study found. Two thirds of users wanted to choose the time of day they received the promotions, others had no idea where the SMS came from or how they opted in.

The DMA advise that if you want to maintain trust you have to be explicit about the optin process and confirm opt outs instantly.

Reference: Consumers Seek Control Over SMS Marketing