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Mobile marketing is not just for the Big Guys, it is also perfect for small businesses.

It is still not too late for you to employ a mobile marketing strategy for the Christmas season. The world has been a flutter with mobile’s performance on both Cyber Monday and Black Friday. Why miss out on a lot more sales. And the best part about it is if you prepare for the Christmas season now, you will reap the benefit from your mobile marketing strategies well into the New Year.

Here are 5 ideas from Mashable to get you going:

“1. Create a Specialized Mobile Holiday App

One study shows that 43% of mobile shoppers have downloaded a retail app. Even if you already offer an app for your business, consider creating an app especially for the holiday season — it will do even more to attract last-minute shoppers.

With a number of low-cost, DIY tools available on the market, small businesses can easily create and update universal apps that can be ready for distribution the same day. In addition to holiday specials and store hours, your app should include a feedback form and some sort of coupon designed to boost sales during the post-holiday slump. Your feedback form should ask customers what kind of mobile outreach they would be most receptive to and collect their mobile numbers for your 2012 campaigns.

2. Build your Mobile Database

If even the simplest app is beyond your reach right now, collecting customer mobile numbers will be critical for your 2012 campaigns. The increase in store traffic during the holidays will translate to a larger database. Hand customers their very last paper coupon at the point-of-sale to redeem in-store post-holiday, in exchange for their mobile number. You can also add a form field to your website prompting customers to enter their mobile numbers in exchange for a coupon or special offer.

Building your mobile database will allow you to take advantage of text or SMS marketing campaigns next year, a low-cost mobile marketing channel that is accessible to 100% of mobile phone users.

3. Get in on Location-Based Deal Services

Though spending is on the rise this year, consumers are still looking for ways to stretch their dollars, and they’re doing it via their mobile devices. Fifty-three percent of Americans are willing to provide their location in exchange for more relevant content and better information, including mobile deals.

Do your bottom line a favor and sign up for mobile deal and location-based platforms to make sure you’re discovered. From Shopkick to Groupon, Foursquare to Yelp, research your options and sign up to bring in new — and possibly repeat — customers. For example, consider offering a limited-time holiday special on Foursquare that, once unlocked via checkin, rewards customers.

4. Engage Customers with a Holiday-Themed QR Code

QR code marketing is a great way to build brand awareness and take advantage of a new technology, especially since 90 million people in the U.S. own smartphones — up 10% from three months ago, according to a survey just released by comScore.

It’s surprisingly easy to customize QR codes, making yours stand out from the crowd. Do it yourself or visit a website like QRlicious, which promises a QR code turnaround time of 24 hours.

If executed properly, QR codes can transform static print campaigns into interactive, trackable advertisements. EShave, which offers upscale shaving products and accessories, placed QR code posters in several phone kiosks. The QR code leads to a mobile site that lets users create their own shaving sets, and was also designed to drive foot traffic to their Rockefeller Center store in New York.

At the very least, your holiday QR code should link to a landing page that encourages holiday shoppers to redeem exclusive discounts.

5. Provide an Integrated Holiday Marketing Campaign

Integrating all or some of the above tactics will bolster your holiday marketing campaigns, but make sure to also promote your mobile presence in-store. For instance, throughout the store display a QR code that links to your app or a special promotion. Display in your store window to attract prospective customers even when you’re closed. Incorporate your QR code and/or app link into your holiday email blasts and promote them on your website and via social media. Companies like Modern Postcard offer quick turnaround and will also print your QR code onto direct mail. Let customers know which deal websites you belong to with store signage and through your usual communication channels.”

For the full original article on mobile marketing for the Christmas holidays

Retailers around the country are seriously putting a lot of energy behind their holiday mobile marketing campaigns. Shouldn’t you be too?

Click here to learn more about the Secrets to Successful Mobile Marketing!

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It is that time of the year again.  We look back. And we look forward.  This was a watershed year for mobile marketing.  Why don’t we look back on 10 key highlights compiled by Adage?

“Location-Based Services Partner for Scale

Foursquare partnered with AmEx; Shopkick went with the CW. Location-based companies proved great at raising capital but not so great at getting a mass of consumers to check in to locations on an ongoing basis. Two of the leading players wisely evolved their strategy. AmEx now rewards Foursquare check-ins at participating merchants with Rewards Points, a more appealing prospect than being the mayor of a coffee shop. Shopkick, which initially required users to turn on the app when entering a store to get points toward merchandise, now rewards people for pointing their phone at the screen while watching TV ads from participating merchants. Consumers can wallow in the smartphone-driven plots of “Gossip Girl” and get points for focusing on the ads.

Google Pulls Ahead

According to mobile ad network Millennial, Android drove the biggest volume of ad impressions in mobile media in January. By October, 56% of all ad impressions running through its system came from Android devices, compared with 28% from Apple devices. Just a year before, the two were neck-and-neck. It all proves that open systems, great prices and broad availability can flip the tables on an established leader.

An Apple Device Gets Metered

Even closed systems sometimes open doors, at least in mobile. In January, Nielsen began metering smartphone activity on iOS platforms. We now know just how often people access weather and play “Angry Birds” — and we hope the industry will stop using downloads as a measure of consumer engagement.

Macy’s Parades Its QR Codes

QR codes are too often ill-conceived and badly promoted, delivering a less-than-optimal first-time experience. Macy’s put the codes front and center for its spring and fall “Backstage Pass” promotions and did something fun with the codes: Get a coupon, get style tips, watch someone like Martha Stewart do a demo, or let Jessica Simpson show you how to work a pair of skinny jeans. Macy’s planned the promo so well that it included in-store WiFi to ensure that the codes would work.

Decent iPad Ad Gets Produced

Considering the gorgeous, high-res palette offered by iPads, the ads are coming up distinctly short. My kid loves The New York Times iPad app, especially the science and auto sections, but even he notices the lack of ads. Wired kind of gets it with its app, but even then most of the ads are clickable static images. The Westin ad that arrived with the relaunch of the Weather Channel app in September actually exploits the fact that you interact with the content by swiping. If your weather forecast says snow, the screen becomes covered in snow that you can wipe away to reveal a warm getaway destination. Bring on more iPad ads that fit the content and involve some kind of aesthetics.

Smartphones Take the Lead

Though people in New York and San Francisco may not believe it, not everyone wanted to pay a data-service fee to go online from their phones. But by midyear, ComScore was reporting that more smartphones than standard had been sold. How app-tastic.

Phones Become Media

Every quarter, I check ComScore’s nice pie chart, which has a grandma slice of “just talkers.” By August, the piece was down to 25%, and using the phone for mobile media (apps plus the web) had blown past 50%.

Starbucks Goes National

Starbucks may be the gateway drug for getting Americans hooked on the idea of using their phones instead of a debit or credit card for purchases. In June, Starbucks went national with its app, which hooks into its loyalty program and allows scan-and-pay. It falls short of Google’s ambitions for a mobile wallet, enabled by near field communications, but still increases line speed for that mochachino.

Mobile Ad Spending Passes $1B Mark

In October, eMarketer revised mobile-device ad spending estimates upward, to $1.23 billion. It’s a drop in the ocean compared with the $31 billion projected for online-ad spending but still a significant milestone.

Black Friday’s New Competitor: Thursday’s Couch Commerce

PayPal Mobile announced a 511% increase in global mobile-payment volume from Thanksgiving 2010 — the peak payment period in the U.S. was 3 p.m. to 4 p.m. ET — just after the pie was served.”

To see the full original article on mobile marketing

My personal favorite?  I think I like the Black Friday ‘Couch Commerce’ fact the best.  What a difference a year makes.  Do you have a favorite?  If so, please feel free to share it with us

Want to know more mobile marketing? Why don’t you check out this great resource.

If you liked this article, please share this to your friends or colleagues who might be interested in creating a mobile website.

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Just when you thought you cracked the code on online communications, the world throws a curve ball at you called mobile marketing!

And yes mobile marketing and mobile communications requires a totally different type of communication style. The rule of the day for mobile marketing is ‘less is more’. There is no room for fat. No room for extraneous information. In other words, mobile marketing and mobile communications requires that you get to the essence of your message immediately.

Here are some tips of how to find, optimize and share your content for mobile devices:

“Mobile readers want bite-sized info

Whether your readers are using smartphones or you are communicating via SMS, they really do want brief, easy-to-read content.

That means shorter paragraphs, fewer jargon-filled expressions, more objective information and (please, please, please) not so many images, thanks.

Where to get your content

If you already create or curate content on your own website, you should be spinning off a mobile-optimized version for your readers.

Just edit down the copywriting, break it into smaller chunks and focus on the most important bits.

If your mobile audience is a specific type of user (such as a salespeople), then you can further target the content you gather and share with them around that topic.

Using a tool like Twitter is a great way to find lots of interesting and useful information from others in your niche. (It’s also a great way to share your own content with mobile readers!)”

How to share

Just like your regular website, you need to share your curated and self-published content through different methods.

For mobile, that means using tools that are popular and accessible to (and used by) your audience. Not everyone has smartphones, and many successful mobile marketing campaigns use SMS to great effect.

Twitter, Facebook and other social sites are a good first channel for sharing. Many smartphone users regularly use these platforms for receiving their information.

When you have an SMS subscriber base, you need to use slightly different methods of sharing as not everyone will have a web-capable device.

Sharing via SMS can be as simple as sharing a bit of news and a source and telling them to check your blog. You can also provide a link so that those with a capable browser can view it via the mobile-optimised version of your content. In fact, SMS can be a really engaging way to get a dialogue going with your readers.”

However you do it, finding and sharing specifically for your mobile audience will be good for your customers and good for your business too.”

To see the full original article about mobile marketing.

When you are creating and sharing content for mobile you also should really think in a mobile mindset. People want you to get to the point quickly.  The naysayers may call this the ‘popcorn communications culture’.  But this is one bag of popcorn you definitely do not want to ignore.

Want to learn more about mobile marketing?

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2011 was the year of mobile marketing. Mobile splashed upon the scene in a big way and in the form of some extraordinary products.

According to Dan Rowinski, here are the top ten Mobile Products of 2011. If you don’t have them (or know about) them, you should:

“1. Square

To understand Square is to fundamentally understand the changing nature of money as information and the ability to turn money into digital bits that can be transferred anywhere without the use of hard currency. The example we like to use at ReadWriteWeb is the ability to pay at your local farmer’s market or in a taxicab. With its dongle reader, Square aims to make mobile payment transactions a ubiquitous and accepted activity. The company did not rest on its laurels this year though. It cannot, especially with so much competition in the mobile payments dongle space from companies like Intuit, Verifone and Erply among others.

This year, Square introduced the concept of Amazon-style one-click buying to real world merchants with the Square Card Case. It also turned the iPad into a point-of-sale terminal with Square Register. Square updated its app to be speedier and more efficient and the Card Case evolved to the point where it is more or less like having an open tab at your favorite retailer tied to your bank account. Pain points at the point of sale? That is what Square is trying to alleviate and it took great strides this year to that end. Square also went to the 2.75% flat fee on transactions, lowering the industry standard and forcing every one else in the ecosystem to play catch up. It has been a good 12 months for Square overall, starting the year with a big round of funding in January and iterating and refining the product throughout the year. That is a far cry from the hiccups of 2010 when dongles did not work with the iPhone 4 and the company was embroiled in a lawsuit. The opportunity for increased success for Square rests in the company’s own hands.

2. Nuance & Swype

Apple brought you Siri, the virtual assistant inside the iPhone 4S. Yet, Nuance is a leader in the field with its innovative and speech-to-text functionality and ability to understand various languages and dialects. The Dragon Speech SDK can be dropped into almost any iOS or Android application to take advantage of speech-to-text capabilities. What Siri did with that technology was then tie it to a search engine and give it a personality that can talk back. What Nuance is doing is working on new and exciting ways for users to interact with the input methods on mobile devices. Nuance is working with app developers to create and entirely new breed of application that is speech aware and reactive. The company is working with mobile developers through its mobile developer program and we have seen some of the fruits of its labor in the area already.

Nuance also made another large splash this year by acquiring Swype, one of the biggest third-party touchscreen keyboard input methods on mobile devices today. Swype has been downloaded over 50 million times to Android and Symbian devices. When Nuance bought Swype, we wondered if the company’s friendly relationship with Apple could eventually bring Swype to the iPhone. When Siri was announced by Apple for the iPhone 4S, our Marshall Kirkpatrick lamented that it should have been Swype. If you have not used Swype, it is a keyboard input method where you keep your finger on the touch screen and input letters by moving to them. If you are a Swype user that has that capability taken from you (by getting a device that does not use Swype), it is definitely missed.

3. Facebook Mobile + Messenger

It is very difficult to ignore the most used mobile app in the world. Approximately 350 million people have accessed Facebook through mobile devices across the world. That, to put it mildly, it outrageous. Facebook Mobile continues to evolve as well. One significant subplot to much of the news in mobile development circles this year would be how and where Facebook would move and if it was coming to come out with an HTML5-based mobile Web app store. We have since found that is not going to be true but Facebook does have some big mobile projects cooking around bringing its app ecosystem to mobile. There will just be no specific app store as Facebook believes users will create viral apps by sharing them along the social graph. Facebook’s mobile strategy lays within those two elements — the Web browser and the open social graph. Every thing that the company does is influenced by those two guiding factors, mobile is no different. Facebook also came out with an iPad app this year, which is essentially a mobile Web-based application wrapped up neatly to use the native capabilities of the iPad through iOS. We studied this year at length how Facebook mobile was designed to write once, run everywhere and how HTML5 is the future of the how Facebook interacts with the mobile Web.

Facebook also released its Messenger application this year, a stand alone product from the normal Facebook app. Really, if Facebook had not acquired group messaging service Beluga this year, that company would have probably found its way on to this list. The Messenger app further cements Facebook’s status as not just a place to share ideas or thoughts, but as a true communications platform that can be accessed from anywhere at anytime. Facebook Mobile is only going to grow in 2012 and we will begin to see some of the ways the company is fundamentally changing the applications, sharing and communications through mobile devices. Facebook has put the argument of Web apps vs. native apps front and center on all mobile developers minds, something that was not true a year ago.

4. Google Wallet

There has been nothing that has done more to bring near field communications (NFC) payments into the mainstream mind share this year more than Google Wallets. We often say that Google is a company that is always in beta and the Wallet program is no exception. NFC technology may eventually have the type of ubiquity to completely change the payments industry but at this point the major in payments are still testing the idea or toying with various implementations, like Coke machines. It will take a while before the Google Wallet project is spread far and wide and a lot of that has to do with its current constriction of partners. You have to be a very specific person (use CitiBank, have a MasterCard and be a Sprint customer with a Nexus Android smartphone) to use the NFC capabilities of Wallet at this point, but those partnerships will lose exclusivity by the end of 2011.

NFC adoption, or the lack thereof, has been a significant source of debate this year in mobile circles. Some see it as the greatest thing to happen since touchscreen devices while others are not convinced. Google Wallet is near the center of that debate and anything that can cause that amount of conversation among different industries such as technology and the financial sectors deserves a spot in the top mobile products of the year.

5. Angry Birds

Mobile developers are leading the field in application development for any kind of computing system. They are pushing the bounds of what can be done with computing, on smaller processors with smaller screen sizes and graphics rendering. Within the realm of mobile developers, mobile game developers are the ones truly leading the charge. Other developers have seen the type of success that Rovio has had with Angry Birds and it has started a bit of a gold rush to create the newest viral sensation. Cut The Rope, Tiny Towers and Infinity Blade (I and II) are examples of successful mobile games as well.

Angry Birds is not just some one hit wonder though. It came to the Chrome browser and the Chromebook, opened a bank, toyed with the idea of NFC and partnered with Nexage to monetize all of those flying fowl. Rovio also came up with a bit of Magic at the ReadWriteWeb 2Way Summit and soon there may be Angry Birds everywhere.

6. Pulse

We debated long and hard what reader app we wanted to be part of this list. Zite was up for consideration, as was Flipboard and News.me, Newsy, Showyou, Qwiki and Feedly. The reason that Pulse beat them all out is the fact that it is the only truly cross-platform reader that brings its full user interface, fully intact, to iOS, Android smartphones and tablets including the Barnes & Noble Nook and the Kindle Fire as well as Windows Phone 7. When looking for an app that fits our definition of what we were looking for in a mobile product (built off the specific mobile platforms or of the mobile Web), Pulse was one to truly stand out.

The Pulse reader works by bringing in feeds from a variety of sources and laying it out in a dynamic UI with horizontally scrolling tiles. During the year it expanded to Pulse.me, an Instagram/Read It Later like function for personal archives, Pulse Connect, a self-service publishing tool. It was named to Apple’s App Store Hall of Fame and was an Android Market Editor’s choice. To be fair, several other apps in this list and others that we have covered through the year also have those particular distinctions. Pulse expects to have 10 million users by the end of the year, after starting 2011 with about one million.

7. Google+ For Android

Google took its time and created a dynamic social network that it released in late June. We got access the day it came out and the consensus among the ReadWriteWeb staff then (and now) is that Google+ is pretty cool and very useful. Google did not lag on publishing an Android application for Google+, which was available the same day as the browser-platform. Google+ is one of the rare Web-based products that I was actually introduced to from a mobile first perspective and everything that needs to be there is present and accounted from. It has its own messenger program (called Huddle when it first launched and now just Messenger), the news stream, profile editing and, the most important of all, photos.

The photo sharing capabilities of Google+ for Android are what set the application apart from almost any other photo sharing service on the Web. The genius behind photos with the app is that photos are individually loaded to a personal cloud in Google+ (and can be accessed through the Web version of Picasa) without the need of the user to manually upload them. This capability does freak some people out but it can be turned off easily in the app’s settings. Photos can also be individually uploaded, up to eight at once. That is about seven more than Twitter and Facebook can do. When Google+ rolled out, we called instant uploads its killer feature. We also compared the Google+ app to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and found that while each platform has its strengths, Google+ for Android stood out amongst the pack.

8. Foursquare

When it comes to location services on mobile devices, Foursquare is at the top of the ecosystem. With around 15 million users, it is far and away the leader in the “check-in” social location system that has seen Gowalla disappear and SCVNGR growth stall. Would-be location and photo sharing app Color pivoted away from implicit social connections and is now an iOS and Android app built on Facebook’s platform. Facebook has been fostering implicit social connections and gaining data from that, but two photo sharing services rumored in June never came to pass, at least not this year. Meanwhile, Foursquare, armed with a large new round of funding, continues to iterate and come out with new products, user interfaces and aspects of the platform.

Foursquare redesigned its website in November, turning it from sparse to useful. The platform is tinkering with using NFC to check-in’s to local merchants and partnered with Groupon to bring deals and offers to local shoppers. There have been so many tweaks to the Foursquare platform this year that it is hard to list them all in one place. It now has real-time notifications and hackers have been working on the Foursquare API to create some interesting tools, like 4sqwifi and Foursquare, Poorsquare. It released its Push API in September and expanded to checking into things like movies and events. Say what you want about the validity of the Foursquare platform in the long run, the company continues to create new products that have utility to users on every mobile platform.

9. Opera Mobile

There has been an explosion in third-party mobile browsers this year, but if we are to only choose one, Opera takes the cake. In consideration were also Dolphin HD, Bolt, Skyfire and Firefox. The only two on that list that are free on both Android and iOS though are Dolphin and Opera and in a race between the two, Opera wins for its versatility, ubiquity, speed, cloud connections, sharing connections and the ability to sync between the desktop and mobile browser. It also has the fastest iteration cycle of all the mobile browsers, pushing out updates at Mozilla-like paces.

Opera, like some of the other mobile browsers, tied its functionality to the cloud to save users’ data connections when browsing the mobile Web. Opera is also one of the best third-party browsers, especially on Android, to run HTML5 Web-apps. Firefox also has good HTML5 integration and rendering but for most of 2011, the Firefox browser for Android has been bug-prone and terrible to use. Opera, as it is known to do, zips right along in comparison.

10. Lookout

In many aspects, 2011 has been the Year of Mobile Malware. More precisely, Android malware. It started with DroidDream early in the year and has risen to unbelievable levels throughout the year. Most users will be safe if they follow some common sense security rules. One of those rules is to make sure you have a security app on your Android device and if you are to pick one of the several choices, Lookout is one of the best. It has safe browsing capabilities for the mobile Web, protects users by not only scanning apps as they are downloaded, but scanning the app store itself and ties all the functionality to its servers in the cloud. Lookout even had the audacity to put out a security-style app for iOS.

Lookout does mobile first and that gives it a bit of a leg up on the competition. It understands mobile and the dynamic that apps live in better than any other security company. Bitdefender released an Android security app recently that compares favorably, but Lookout has been doing it nearly all year. In addition to scanning apps for malware and permissions, Lookout also has a privacy advisor, backup capabilities and the ability to find a missing device. When it comes to stand alone mobile security outside of common sense or enterprise grade mobile device management policies, Lookout is the choice.”

For the full original article on Mobile Marketing

The world of mobile marketing did not disappoint in 2011 and will only become more interesting in the New Year.

What was your favorite mobile marketing event of the year?  Is there anything that doesn’t appear on this list that should be?  And are you ready for 2012?

Want to learn more about mobile marketing?

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Mobile marketing is not only for B2C markets but is just as appropriate for B2B marketers. But as much as there is a flood of information for the consumer-oriented mobile marketer, there is a dearth of information for the B2B marketer

Corey Eridon, in a recent article, outlines six helpful way that B2B marketers can optimize their mobile marketing and mobile presence:

“1.) Optimize your website and downloadable content. A site that looks great on someone’s desktop isn’t going to translate well to a tiny rectangular screen. To create a mobile-friendly site, you can simply change the way your site is organized when displayed on a mobile phone or create an entirely new mobile site. You should ensure your downloadable content is also optimized as you make these changes. Start with your most frequently downloaded content, and work your way down. If your blog reads well on a smartphone and your most popular whitepaper/ebook only asks readers to scroll up and down, not right and left, you’re sure to be a go-to distraction for weary business (and holiday!) travelers.

2.) Create audio content out of your long-form content. While mobile readers will be stoked to read that super popular whitepaper you’ve kindly mobile optimized for them, they might love you even more if they can listen to it. Leverage the unique capabilities of smartphones and mobile devices, and publish recordings of your long-form content. If you’re a gifted videographer, video content is a great content asset for your mobile audience, too.

3.) Add social sharing buttons. If people love your content on their desktop computers, they’ll love it on their mobile devices, too. So make it easy for them to share! Include social sharing functionality on each piece of content so people can post it to LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ with just the tap of their finger.

4.) Make forms more mobile user-friendly. Landing page forms are a huge pain to fill out on mobile phones. If you can get away with eliminating fields on mobile forms, do it. Also, ensure that the fields are aligned well with field labels, which should be succinct and straightforward. This will help cut down on the dreaded red alert we all get when we incorrectly fill out a form or miss a field. And finally, don’t ask a mobile user to click Next, just to fill out more form fields; all fields should be displayed vertically and on one page. No matter how nimble our fingers have become at typing on smartphones, the less clicking and scrolling, the better.

5.) Provide click-to-call functionality. This is one of those easy wins that, like the scrolling form field, makes people like you for making their life easier. Just as you can leverage mobile devices for their audio capabilities, leverage that fact that smartphone site visitors can give you a ring even easier than desktop readers!

6.) Make emails mobile-friendly. Of the jaw-dropping 70 million US consumers who access email through their mobile device (Source: Comscore), 43% check email four or more times per day (Source: Markle). Although these numbers are encouraging, many mobile email readers are triaging their inbox, deciding whether they want to read your email now, later, or never. Use a clear email subject line and recognizable name in the sender field to ensure you don’t get deleted. Then do your best to create a pleasant mobile reading experience by offering both plan text and HTML versions of your email, using very descriptive alt text in case your images don’t display, and keeping the message brief.”

The good news about mobile marketing is that even if you aren’t ready to plunge ahead 100% into an expensive or elaborate mobile marketing campaign, there are things to do that will make you mobile friendly to your professional consumer. And given that a large majority of professionals sport smartphones, you really should ensure that you have established a quality mobile presence as a base. Have you started your Even though many B2B marketers aren’t ready to launch massive mobile campaigns, mobile usage shows no signs of slowing down. If you give your website and emails a mobile makeover now, you’ll save time down the road when you’re ready to dive head-first into mobile marketing.

For the full article on Mobile Marketing.

Have you  created your Mobile Marketing Presence? Maybe it should go on the top of your list for 2012!  launched or been engaged with a B2B mobile marketing campaign?

Want to learn more about mobile marketing?

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I love examples of successful mobile campaigns.  Since its early days for mobile marketing, we can all benefit from looking at campaigns that work well.

Here is a description of what fast food giant McDonalds has been up to in the field of mobile marketing.

Here is how their campaign works:

“The mobile ads reads “How Wholesome is Your Breakfast? Test Your Memory Skills to Find Out. Play Now.”

When consumers tap on the mobile banner ads they are redirected to a mobile landing page where they can sharpen their memory skills about McDonald’s Wholesome Breakfast.

Via the memory game, users are encouraged to tap and match each breakfast item.

Consumers can play the memory game

Consumers also have the option of skipping the game.

If they do that, they are taken to a mobile page that promotes McDonald’s healthy items which are 300 calories or less.

Users can also choose to find the nearest location to try out the products, check out the company’s site where they can look up more nutrition facts or play the game again.

The company is also incorporating social features within the ad that redirect users to its Facebook and Twitter pages.”

This is just the latest in a series of mobile efforts launched by McDonalds. Here are some of the other things they have done.

“Earlier this year McDonald’s used foursquare to promote is new McCafe Shakes and raise money for its Ronald McDonald House Charities.

Consumers were encouraged to check-in on foursquare at any restaurant in the Philadelphia region and send their check-in to Twitter with a @McDPhilly mention.

For every check-in received, McDonald’s donated $1 to Ronald McDonald House Charities”

For the full original article on McDonalds mobile marketing

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One benefit of being a MarketingSherpa reporter is I get to interview marketers from companies of all sizes and business sectors, and marketing industry experts for the case studies and how-to articles we publish in our newsletters.

Mobile marketing hit the ground running is 2011.  However, we haven’t seen anything yet. According to the industry giant MarketingSherpa, we can expect to see mobile continuing its upward spiral in 2012 but there will nonetheless be challenges on the way:

“A few mobile predictions for the next year

For instance, I recently spoke with Andrew Martin, Vice President, Metia, a digital marketing agency with multiple international offices, for an upcoming consumer marketing article. At one point, we took a little detour into what is going on in the mobile space and what marketers should be thinking about over the next year.

“I think mobile is obviously moving at a critical pace,” says Martin. “And it can often be daunting to try and keep up.”

He mentions one issue in the simple sheer number of mobile applications out there.

“I think the Apple App Store has over 400,000 applications. That makes it more and more difficult to differentiate yourself,” Martin explains.

And it’s not just applications.

Martin says, “A number of years ago, Nokia became the biggest camera manufacturer in the world, and that was an indication of where mobile would be going.”

He says this spread of cameras on phones served as one indication of how mobile devices are changing how people interact with everyday items, creating new marketing opportunities, and how “that convenience is a huge opportunity for brands and people.”

Martin adds that marketers should pay attention to technological changes with mobile, such as HTML5 and the attempt to get more consistency across different browsers and devices. He says many of his clients are interested in how these new mobile technologies can help them and are closely watching how Apple handles this push for more technology standardization.

Sites vs. apps

Going back to the point about just how many apps people now have to sort through and deal with, Martin says he finds mobile websites versus mobile applications interesting right now.

“How do companies think about the Web in a mobile sense?” he asks. “Sometimes consumers or potential customers can begin to feel a bit overloaded by the number of apps that are out there and how many there are to choose from.”

With that in mind, marketers are obviously going to be better served by thinking about mobile efforts strategically and not just jumping on the app bandwagon because everyone else is. You should work to provide value to your audience with the mobile experience. That might be best served by a mobile-optimized site, an app or even a combination of both.

Phones vs. tablets

One final point is not all mobile devices are alike. Particularly, there are two form factors – the smartphone with its small screen and the tablet with a larger screen. Your mobile website should be optimized for both devices, and if you have an app, you should also optimize it for each device.

Martin says a good way to maximize each form factor is design your mobile experience to work on the differently-sized devices in parallel.

“How do I use my iPhone as an input device and my iPad as a management device?” he asks.

He says this approach makes sense because you might want to allow mobile customers to enter information on the go when they only have a smartphone on them, but at the same time take advantage of the increased screen real estate of a tablet to make control and management mechanisms easier to handle.”

For the whole original article on mobile marketing in 2012

In a nutsell, mobile marketing will continue to be the talk of the town. But there are a few bumps in the road. As mobile applications become more and more prevalent, it will be increasingly difficult to stand out from the crowd.  A better route to go might be to forego your mobile application altogether and instead concentrate on getting a more simple, easy-to-use mobile website up.

Additionally, we need to stop thinking that all mobile devices are created equal and start understanding the differences between smartphones and tablets.  But one thing is for sure. Mobile marketing is here to stay. Are you ready?

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