2009 Year of Mobile Marketing? If Not Next Year, Says MMA

Today, I spent most of the day at the Mobile Marketing Forum in downtown, Los Angeles. It was a well-rounded event that covered almost everything anyone would need to know about mobile marketing. I will be posting the winners of the MMA awards later.

Maria Mandel, Senior Partner, Executive Director Digital Innovation at Ogilvy, and North America Board Chair of the Mobile Marketing Association, summed up the state of mobile marketing in her closing remarks. Here is the text of her presentation:

Is 2009 the year mobile marketing took off?

Consider the stats:

• 3 billion mobile phones = most widely used technology on earth.
• There are 3x more mobile phone users than PC users.
• There are 2x more mobile phone users than Internet users.
• Every four seconds a baby is born...and 15 mobile phones are purchased.
• More people have mobile phones than credit cards.
• The mobile phone is more important than TV to 16-24 year olds.
• Mobile media spend is up 40% versus year ago. Making mobile media the fastest growing media channel today.
• Mobile spend is predicted to reach $6.5 billion in 2012 in the US and $19 billion worldwide. With mobile phone penetration in the US near 90% and increased use of advanced phone capabilities, marketing opportunities abound. Now over half of the US population uses SMS on their phone and a quarter of the population accesses the internet. Verbal communication is starting to take a back seat to texting, e-mail, and web-based activity. A recent Nielsen study found that the average US mobile subscriber sends or receives 486 text messages per month, but makes just 182 calls.

Mobile marketing has moved beyond an emerging media channel with SMS and mobile web having mass penetration and usage.

Mobile advertising allows marketers to engage consumers in personalized, always-on, location-based dialogue. From simple text based messages to robust iPhone applications, there are mobile-based tactics that can help with any marketing objective.

Effective mobile marketing is available today; it is time to start using it. If 2009 hasn't been the year mobile marketing took off, lets make sure that 2010 is.