1. In association with:
Mobile in 2011: How Today’s Marketers Are Cashing In
Developments in smartphones have finally made mobile a viable revenue-generating channel for
marketers. Phones are increasingly the gateway to the online world, now that consumers readily use
them to download video clips, listen to music, network, play games and search the internet. This year,
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mobile internet users are predicted to eclipse 1 billion worldwide with mobile commerce expected to
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reach $2.4 billion in sales .
Yet while most marketers understand and appreciate the emerging and accelerating opportunities for
relevant, real-time, on-the-go engagement between their brands and their customers, mobile marketing
remains a story of great, untapped potential, according to recent research.
Mobile Marketing Potential Understood - But Untapped
mROI: Mobile measurement belongs alongside other online marketing channels when evaluating
performance, return on investment and, ultimately, investment allocation. Close to 80 percent of
marketers believe the return on investment on mobile marketing will be higher or considerably higher
this year, according to the study of almost 250 marketers, including 83 agencies and 162 client-side
executives, conducted by Coremetrics, a leading provider of web analytics.
Whether it is a £10 million budget or a £10,000 budget, having a mobile presence is a must to ensure
that every opportunity is taken to engage with customers. Yet a majority of the marketers surveyed had
yet to launch either a dedicated mobile-friendly version of their website or mobile app.
Have you created a mobile friendly version of your website?
Response
Answer Options Response Count
Percent
Yes 42.8% 105
No 57.5% 141

2. Have you built a mobile app for your product?
Response
Answer Options Response Count
Percent
Yes 34.2% 84
No 66.1% 162
Understand Site Visitors And Customer Behaviour
mStrategy: However, mobile marketing must be more than a me-too exercise. Each brand must
understand what it wants and needs its mobile marketing channel to deliver. Just under 30 percent of
marketers see mobile as a means of driving more web traffic, according to the research, but a majority
see increased audience interaction as the primary benefit of their mobile marketing strategy. Just over
20 percent see mobile as a means of driving traffic to a store or other point of purchase, leveraging
higher conversion rates through handheld devices.
Brands, however, should attempt to understand existing mobile activity on their websites before
formulating a strategy. In particular, they should move beyond simple session-based metrics to tools
which enable them to study the behaviour of visitors accessing their websites on mobile devices.
Devices: For example, it is important to understand which devices are being used to access your
website. It is clear that at present iPhones and iPads are by far the dominant devices across all sectors,
followed by Blackberry and Google and all other devices at just 20 percent. With the different operating
systems on mobile devices, marketers should understand how their customers are distributed across
the different platforms and then focus their mobile strategy accordingly. For example, some operating
systems do not support Flash on a web site and different application stores require separate
development efforts.
Which device is most important for you in reaching your audience?
Response
Answer Options Response Count
Percent
iPhones 69.5% 170
Blackberries 30.0% 74
iPads 32.1% 79
Google phones 22.7% 56
Other Smartphone brands 20.1% 49

3. No idea 10.5% 26
Understanding visitor behavior, overlaid with knowledge of which devices they are using, will uncover
areas of improvement and optimisation, such as page design, navigation and loading times and
opportunity, such as launching a mobile site or app aimed at certain devices or behaviour types.
For example, do you know how many of your customers are using their mobile devices simply as a
research tool? And how many are using them for transactions? What are the search terms they are
using? For example, customers who search for “discount” and “cheap” can and ought to be treated
differently to those who type in “quality” and “luxury”. How do Blackberry users navigate around your site
compared with customers using an iPhone?
On average, the bounce rate for site visits from a mobile device is nearly 10 percent higher than online
site visits. A user interface designed for smaller screens and easy navigation are necessary features to
attract visitors and keep their attention. Having the ability to track how mobile visitors interact with the
site is the first step in understanding what areas may need improvement.
Integrate Mobile Into The Marketing Mix
Too many brands still treat mobile marketing in isolation, when it ought to be considered as another
channel alongside email, paid search, natural search and social media.
Have you integrated mobile into your marketing mix in 2011?
Response
Answer Options Response Count
Percent
Yes 38.0% 93
Not yet but will shortly 41.4% 101
No 20.8% 51
Social media: Integrating mobile marketing with social media activity is a must. Around half of Twitter
traffic, for example, now comes from mobile phonesiii. Apple recently announced deeper integration with
Twitter in its upcoming iOS 5, the operating system for iPhones and iPads. Yet while 43 percent of
respondents say they have an integrated mobile strategy with social media activity, the majority of
marketers have done so tentatively or not at all.
Have you integrated mobile with your social media activity?
Response
Answer Options Response Count
Percent
Yes 43.5% 107
No 26.4% 65
Slightly 31.2% 76
For brands, this is an area of growing opportunity but also challenge. Increasingly consumers are using
social networking services such as Twitter and Facebook as a means of not only sharing news of offers
and discounts, but also as customer service channels for expressing positive and negative opinions
about a brand. The areas of responsibility for marketing and customer services departments are blurring
– which means the necessity for an integrated mobile and social media strategy grows ever stronger.
mPayment: Security concerns – on the part of brands as well as their consumers – remain the primary
barrier to greater transaction activity on mobile devices.

4. Only 10 percent of survey respondents say they have a mobile payment mechanism. Yet Amazon is
reporting annual global revenue from mobile devices of around $1 billion. One item is sold via eBay
Mobile every two seconds. Global brands know that acceptance of m-commerce and mobile payments
in emerging markets such as India and Brazil, where at-home broadband penetration is lower, is also
already racing ahead of customer behaviour in developed economies.
If security issues are managed, customers will move beyond using their phones as simple research
tools, while at the same time brands can move beyond basic SMS campaigns and build loyalty as they
listen and engage with customers through this increasingly effective channel.
Summary
The time for “soft pedaling” on mobile is over and the smartest brands are already experimenting with
location, augmented reality and QR technologies to leap ahead to the next stage of mobile marketing
and commerce.
For example, Homebase, a home and garden retailer, uses QR codes to enable customers browsing
products in-store to watch advice and tips videos on their devices. Tesco deploys location-based tools
that understand where customers are in their stores and can advise shoppers, via their mobiles, to
where the discounted products are on each aisle. Ikea’s augmented reality iPhone app allows
customers to select a piece of furniture from its catalogue and use the phone's camera to place it
anywhere inside the room around them, and then change its size to fit the perspective.
The challenge to brands of adding yet another new marketing channel are numerous – in many
organisations, marketing and IT departments are already overloaded and overspent – but marketers
must understand the mobile environment or risk losing the race.
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IDC
ii
ABI Research
iii
Pew Internet Project