Mobile marketing is becoming increasingly important for customer acquisition and retention. A survey of 110 executives found that most currently use mobile to attract new customers, and plan to use it more for retaining and engaging customers through messaging, transactions, and commerce. There is strong interest in innovative mobile formats like branded content, apps, coupons and QR codes. Many outsource mobile campaigns for fully-managed solutions, especially for execution, measurement, and technical support. A key concern is the quality of opt-in customer mobile phone number databases.

1. Whoop Research for the Mobile Marketplace

9. Survey of 110 Executive Level Marketers

27. Among the key findings: Mobile is part of the mix to attract and keep customers: The vast majority of respondents (56%) currently use mobile to acquire new customers. But that will change as respondents follow through on their plans to boost customer retention and loyalty through mobile marketing (64%), streamline transactions (37%) and enable commerce and sales using a mobile device (37%). Messaging is essential: Usage of MMS is poised for significant growth, with with 22% of respondents revealing plans to double deployment in the next six months. The use of SMS messaging is also on the rise, but will move from a one-way message to a two-way conversation. Marked interest in more innovative formats: Respondents reported use of branded content will increase from 29% to 35%, use of branded apps will rise from 23% to 35%. Finally, use of mobile coupons and QR codes will jump from 20% to 31%. Mobile marketing is teamwork: The vast majority of respondents (47%) outsource to providers that can meet their requirements for a fully-managed marketing solution. Campaign execution services was the most sought-after skill (57%), followed by measurement, analytics and reporting (54%), technical services and integration (52%), and mobile campaign management (52%). Quality of opt-in campaign databases is a main concern: One-third of respondents (32%) expressed concern over the quality of the customer mobile phone numbers stored in their opt-in databases.