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Ford Tops Super Bowl Ads With Facebook Reveal – MediaPost
“Ford outdistanced other automakers’ share-of-shopping increases the day after they had run 30-second Super Bowl commercials this year. The firm says Super Bowl auto advertisers saw average share of shopping lift by 14%. But that was less than a third of Explorer’s growth from the Facebook unveiling. “Ford’s campaign clearly demonstrates that while traditional media can be highly effective in driving consideration, a well-executed and deeply influential online program can shift car shopping intent with immediacy and efficacy,” said Kyriakoza.”
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Businesses Add iPads to Their Briefcases – WSJ
“When Apple Inc.’s first iPhone came out in 2007, many companies told their employees that the device wasn’t appropriate for the workplace. The iPad is a different story.The company’s tablet-style device seems to be sidestepping the resistance that the iPhone and other consumer-oriented devices have faced in the corporate environment. Indeed, many businesses have raced to snap up iPads.”
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Mobile ads effective influencers of holiday gift-purchasing decisions – Mobile Marketer
“When targeting, media placement and creative are done right, mobile marketers can make a significant impact on purchase and consideration during the holidays.

Mobile calls-to-action featuring an SMS keyword and short code or mobile bar code can make holiday-themed traditional media actionable. Savvy retailers can get the word out about holiday sales via SMS, the mobile Web and branded applications, while brands can use various forms of mobile advertising to achieve their holiday-specific goals.”
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6 Reasons Why Retailers Must Adopt Mobile Marketing – ClickZ
“The mobile Web and associated media consumption behavior is growing by leaps and bounds. For many retailers, your audience is already there. In the U.S. alone, there are more than 85 million mobile Internet users, according to eMarketer. The consultancy projects that number to reach 100 million by next year. Smartphone growth is clearly driving a sea change here, and other data points to mobile Web access outpacing PC Web access within the next five years, globally.”
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Google Gmail Adds Skype-Like Call Features; Will Ad-Supported Calls Follow? - MediaPost
“Google will add the ability to make telephone calls to any phone in the U.S. or Canada from its popular Gmail application by integrating Google Voice and video chat.  Advertisers and marketers watching Google expand services related to click-to-call Web and mobile ads or pay-per-click advertising can’t help but believe in a future plan to integrate advertising. Clix Marketing Founder David Szetela believes the long-term plan is to provide cellular and Internet calling for free, supported by ads. “I think they will also combine telephony solutions to allow advertisers to include the ability to track phone numbers in their Web ads,” he says.”
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Smartphones Propel Mobile Net Use - AdWeek
“The acceleration of U.S. smartphone ownership has led eMarketer to raise its estimate for the number of mobile users who will access the Web from their devices in 2010 to 85.5 million, up from 83.5 million in the research firm’s November 2009 forecast.”
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A comprehensive list of noteworthy news can be found at http://delicous.com/RedDoorInteractive.  Also, be sure to follow us on Twitter if you’d like up to the minute updates on our latest posts http://twitter.com/reddoor.

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The 18 Use Cases of Social CRM, The New Rules of Relationship Management - The Altimeter Group
“Over the last six months, I’ve been working closely with Ray Wang who is well known in the CRM space as an expert. Coupled with my focus on social technologies we did a deep dive on how our worlds are colliding into the trend to Social CRM. In our opening webinar when we announced our joining of the firm, we made it clear we’re looking at the holistic business, across multiple business departments –not silos or roles.” ~Jeremiah Owyang
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How UX Can Drive Sales in Mobile Apps – UX Magazine
“This is an interview with Jeff Powers and Vikas Reddy, the founders of Occipital and creators of the popular iPhone app, RedLaser. We became interested in their story when we learned the differentiating factor between a somewhat unsuccessful first version and a wildly popular second version was due to their attentition to UX.”
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What Has The Recession Done to Consumers and Us? – Advertising Age
“If we are to get this economy rolling again, start creating jobs, moving products off shelves at fair prices, and buy products and services from other companies such as ad agencies based on their unique offerings versus their discounted fees, then we must do a few things:

* Shift strategies to emphasize differentiated offerings. It’s back to basics folks.
* Spend more time innovating and not figuring out how low you can go.
* Drive efficiencies in your products/services, so the value is better than ever, but don’t lead with price in your marketing strategy, unless you can sustain that strategy. It works for Kia and select discounters — so think hard about the path you are taking you/your clients’ brand.
* Maintain a long-term vision for your brand. Short-term price strategies can quickly erode brand value.”
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Something Different for Click! and for Music – MusicCovery
“Select your music based on mood. An interesting alternative interface to Pandora. Listen off the site or plug it into your iTunes. “On top of the usual features, you will find now optimized ergonomics, a wall of favorite artists, a radio of new releases, more ways to share on Facebook and Twitter.”
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Designing for the Mind - Design Informer
“Is it merely an opinion, or is there something more to it? Breaking design down seems like such an abstract thing. Even the designers who are able to create thought-provoking work seem purely talented and have natural abilities that can’t really be nailed down to a process. But what if there were principles that captured why design and art worked the way that they do?”
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A comprehensive list of noteworthy news can be found at http://delicous.com/RedDoorInteractive.  Also, be sure to follow us on Twitter if you’d like up to the minute updates on our latest posts http://twitter.com/reddoor.

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We’ve done the hard work for you.

Facebook Lets Publishers Contact “Likers” - All Facebook
Facebook recently made a significant announcement that has far reaching implications and may have you thinking twice before hitting that “Like” button on pages across the web.

“Publishers can now publish content to the feeds of all people who liked a specific page. This is a significant step forward in the opening of Facebook Page functionality to the entire web. Also as part of the announcement, Facebook announced a minor, yet significant, upgrade that will convert all iFrame like buttons into share buttons as well.

This is the second step of Facebook providing all pages on the internet with the same tools that all Facebook Pages have. For example, let’s say you “like” this article. I will be able to send a news feed story to all Facebook users who liked that page. The impact of this is significant. Imagine the ability for any object that you like to be able to communicate with you directly through the news feed. In other words, all webpages on the internet immediately have become two-way communication channels.”

On the lighter side, it’s cool that you can now make a comment as you hit the Like button and spark more conversation with all your connections. 

Another point of interest for maketers, Facebook increased the analytics capabilities of the function. “For instance, you can now easily A/B test different types and placements of the Like button to determine the implementation that maximizes referral traffic to your site.”  You can read more about it on the Facebook Developer Blog.
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Patelco Credit Union Offers Peer-To-Peer Mobile Payments – Mobile Commerce Daily
“Patelco Credit Union has launched person-to-person mobile payments and integrated the service into its mobile banking platform.

Mobile Popmoney enables Patelco’s members to send an electronic payment directly to another person via an email or text message from their mobile phone. CashEdge and MShift Inc. jointly enable this integration of Mobile Pay Other People Popmoney P2P payments via the MShift mobile banking platform.  Patelco Credit Union claims that it is the first financial institution in the United States to launch this person-to-person mobile payment system fully integrated into its mobile banking platform.”
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Nielsen Sez Only 3.9% of Our Online Time is Spent with Video – Media Post
“Nielsen notes that video is the only category other than online gaming, search and social networking to gain share in the last year. Our streaming multimedia usage climbed 12% since June 2009, while e-mail use plummeted 28% in its share and portal use was off 19%. Social networking, which now accounts for 22.7% of all time spent online.”
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What is an Experience Continuum (and how do I get one)? – MyCustomer.com
“The customer controls the interaction (when, where, and how) and the organisation strives to provide an ever-evolving experience based on their feedback. There are no more lifecycles; there is now an Experience Continuum.  The Social Business Model.” ~Esteban Kolsky
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The Standard for Online and Internet Influence – Klout
Just for fun or to compare with competitors, check your Klout on Twitter!
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A comprehensive list of noteworthy news can be found at http://delicous.com/RedDoorInteractive.  Also, be sure to follow us on Twitter if you’d like up to the minute updates on our latest posts http://twitter.com/reddoor.

Click, enjoy and learn.

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Google Opens Places API With Initial Focus On Check-In Apps - TechCrunch
“Today on their Geo blog, Google is announcing that they’re beginning to open the Places API for business. The first developers getting access? Those working on check-in services.

Here’s what Google has to say:

  ‘We are going to focus initially on check-in applications. These are the applications that we feel the API currently caters to well, and we are excited to work with developers building these applications to understand their requirements, and ensure that we are offering them the best possible experience.’

So does this mean the end of Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, and all the rest? Well, no. All this means is that it should be a lot easier for startups to build the next versions of those types of services.”

From a RedDoor perspective, based applications are perhaps one of the most under-utilized technologies available to marketers.  Timely, convenient, personal and accessible through several existing channels.  Email, SMS, applications and mobile browsers each have an established place in the consumers hand.  All marketers have to do is reach out . . . 
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The Dirtiest Word in UX:  Complexity- UX Magazine
“It’s hard to read anything about UX without finding a reference to the constant tension between simplicity and complexity. People have strong preconceived notions about the words, especially when it comes to experience design. You don’t have to be a UX practitioner to understand that simplicity is a good thing; no one goes around the office saying, “Alright team, let’s make this application really, really complex!”
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Sonic, REI, American Eagle drive traffic in-store via SMS – MobileMarketer
“Sonic, REI and American Eagle Outfitters participated in a ShopAlerts pilot program where 65 percent of consumers purchased a product as a result of a text alert they received.

A Placecast executive discussed case studies and the company’s mobile strategy during a webinar moderated by Mobile Marketer’s Dan Butcher. The webinar centered around ShopAlerts, which are location-triggered text messages designed to drive opted-in consumers to a brand’s retail locations.”
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10% Of Applications In The App Store For iPad Boast In-App Purchases - TechCrunch
“According to Distimo, the percentage of applications with in-app purchases is significantly higher in the App Store for iPad (10%) compared to that for the iPhone (2%). One of the main reasons for that, still according to the startup, is the fact that the App Store for iPad became available after in-app purchases were introduced, contrary to the App Store for iPhone. Another reason to take into consideration is that the iPad may currently be used more as a media consumption device than the iPhone, with magazine and newspaper publishers selling much of their content as in-app purchases.”
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What Marketers Can Learn From Starbucks’ Foursquare Stumble - AdAge
Starbucks has a well-earned rep as an outstanding marketer that really does get social media. Which is why it didn’t surprise me it was an early adopter on Foursquare. What did surprise me: When I went to take advantage of Starbucks’ recently ended Foursquare promotion, neither the barista nor the manager had any idea what I was talking about. So much for cashing in on my mayorship with a discounted caramel frappuccino. Really, Starbucks? How difficult is it to send an e-mail to your managers outlining the campaign details? Missteps aside, I have a lot of respect for the marketing minds at Starbucks. The company has consistently been first to jump on new technologies and platforms and incorporate them into its marketing strategy!”
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A comprehensive list of noteworthy news can be found at http://delicous.com/RedDoorInteractive.  Also, be sure to follow us on Twitter if you’d like up to the minute updates on our latest posts http://twitter.com/reddoor.

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Why We Check In: The Reasons People Use Location-Based Social Networks – ReadWriteWeb
In this week’s Click! we’ve taken a closer look at the growth and opportunities around  “geo-location” or location-based technologies.   As the use of location based services continues to skyrocket, restaurants appear to be the primary benefactor.  Users of the technology are provided with opportunities for being be wooed into a new experience at a nearby location or simply find their favorite fix in a matter of seconds.  The restaurant example cited on the Wikipedia page for Location-based advertising notes that in addition to a user becoming aware of the location, they can instantly access a map of how to get to the spot.

“Services like Foursquare, Gowalla and others make it easy to post your physical location to the Web – but what makes people want to do that at all? Fifteen-month-old Foursquare is adding 100,000 new users every week, and Facebook has made it clear that location is a feature it is preparing to offer soon. What’s the motivation for users to register where they are in the offline world online?”  

This article from Read Write Web surveys users of the services to find out why.
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Restaurant Owner Increases Sales by 110% with Foursquare Swarm Badge Party - HubSpot Blog
“How do you attract a flash mob of 150+ people to your restaurant? Offer the possibility of a Foursquare Swarm Badge, of course! Last week, restaurant owner Joe Sorge attracted 161 Foursquare users at the same time to his burger joint in Milwaukee, AJ Bombers (pretty impressive considering there are approximately only 300-400 total Foursquare users in the area). Even more impressive is the fact that the restaurant more than doubled its typical Sunday sales, with an increase of 110% that day.”
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What Twitter Places Means for the Future of Location - Mashable
What does Twitter Places mean for you or your business? Like most of us you probably use twitter to communicate and spread information to your followers, but with Twitter Places you will be able to take the power of your tweet to a whole new level. “Location-sharing — via applications that use geo-location to tie locations to places for the purpose of letting users broadcast where they are — is prime for a breakout moment. Places add context to tweets, and it’s this context that will finally help location-sharing holdouts understand why location matters and how they could benefit.”
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PayPal Launches Mobile Express Checkout To Enable One-Click Buying On Smartphones - TechCrunch
eBay has expressed that mobile is the future for e-commerce. The numbers only reinforce this as “mobile payments are poised to reach $200 billion by 2012″, according to Juniper Research. eBay is focused on making  PayPal the leader in the mobile payment realm, and they are on track to doing just that. ”PayPal’s mobile transactions have grown as smartphone usage has increased, from $25 million in 2008 to $141 million in 2009.”
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Verizon Wireless Said to Start Offering IPhone in January - Bloomberg
According to UBS AG analyst John Hodulik, “The iPhone, which has been the sole domain of rival AT&T in the U.S. since June 2007, will give Verizon a boost in its competition for smartphone customers.” He estimates that the “92.8 million Verizon customers will likely buy 30 million iPhones per quarter.” What does this potentially mean for your business? More people using your mobile site with their smartphones.
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E-mail Continues As A Marketing Overachiever - AdWeek
“Despite all the complaints one hears about e-mail spam, a survey in the U.S. and 12 countries in Europe and Asia/Pacific finds plenty of consumers willing to act on marketing e-mails that catch their fancy. Released this week, the study shows 58 percent of respondents saying an e-mail marketing message has prompted them to make a purchase at an offline store or via a call-center order desk.”
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A comprehensive list of noteworthy news can be found at http://delicous.com/RedDoorInteractive.  Also, be sure to follow us on Twitter if you’d like up to the minute updates on our latest posts http://twitter.com/reddoor.

Ryan Leslie is a producer, singer, rapper, and multi-instrumentalist who graduated from Harvard University with a degree in Economics and Government at 19 years of age.  Impressive to say the least!  Here is a short video introduction should you not be familiar with his work:

After signing a recording contract with Universal Recordings and never receiving proper marketing support for his music, Leslie decided that he was no longer going to rely on a major label.  In 2005 he launched Ryan Leslie TV, a Youtube channel where he began posting his music videos, behind the scenes footage in the recording studio, and an inside look into his day-to-day adventures as a young record producer.  This was an unprecidented approach to promotion in the music industry at the time.  The Youtube channel in coordination with his Myspace page provided increased exposure for his music and enabled him to cultivate a loyal fan-base.  In 2006, Leslie was accused of artificially inflating his Youtube channel ranking by creating fake accounts.  This lead to a temporary removal of  his channel from the “Most Subscribed” list.  After writing an official statement to the Youtube community channels denying the claim and an official investigation that resulted in no proof of wrongdoing, Leslie’s channel was reinstated.

Ryan Leslie continues to build his brand through social media tools.  His personal website RyanLeslie.com is a fully integrated “content hub.”  There he posts all of his personal thoughts, videos and ways to connect with him directly.  The level of transparency even goes as far as sharing his personal cell phone number and email address.  By opting in to receive communications from Leslie via his virtual Blackberry phone, you can get exclusive invites to shows, hear new music he is working on, and even a personal call from the man himself.  Sound too good to be true?  Check out this experiment he conducted while on a radio promo tour in San Francisco:

His personal Twitter account updates as well as Facebook Connect are integrated into the site so that users don’t have to create an additional user name and password to log on.  This also allows Leslie to attach a real person to comments and reactions.  Each of his posts can generate 150+ comments which goes to show the high level of engagement.

On February 10th Ryan Leslie’s self titled debut album was officially released.  Exactly 7 minutes after making an appearance at the Times Square Virgin Megastore (R.I.P.), the store was sold out of Ryan Leslie albums.  By sticking to a revolutionary idea and the use of  social media tools, Ryan Leslie is “helping to reshape the business paradiam for a dying industry.”  This video speaks for itself:

And just like children they go through a series of steps: incubation, birth, adolescence, adulthood, and finally they reach senior citizen status.

But unlike children, there is no What to Expect When You Are Expecting to refer to. You want to be a good parent, and that takes preparation. I want you to be prepared. I want you to know what to expect when you are expecting (a mobile campaign). So, before you find yourself in a delivery room, about to give birth to a mobile campaign, please read what follows.

Phase 1: Incubation.

“We’re having a mobile campaign!” Elation! Excitement! Then, realization, “We’re… having… a… mobile… campaign…” But fear not. Incubation takes time. In the business word you probably aren’t going to have nine months to wait. The birth of a mobile campaign is going to happen much more quickly, so it is important that you get prepared.

Haphazardness is not going to cut it.

Realize that for this campaign to work it needs to be fully integrated with the other channels in your marketing strategy. Think of Incubation as the planning phase. It is important to understand how you can leverage your other marketing channels to get people to participate in the campaign. This could include in-store, radio, television, and social media promotions, to name just a few.

And just like preparing for the birth of a child, preparing for a mobile campaign means you need to have the proper infrastructure in place. With a baby, you would prepare the nursery. For a mobile campaign, you need to find a partner that best suits your campaign strategy. Your partner should be well versed in the mobile tactic(s) you’ll be employing. Just as I wouldn’t want a plastic surgeon delivering my baby, I wouldn’t want a mobile application builder delivering my SMS campaign.

Make sure that the entire infrastructure is in place, that you have a strong plan, clearly defined business goals, and a sound strategy that is tailored to achieve those goals.

Phase 2: Birth.

Congratulations! Your mobile campaign has been delivered. It came out kicking and screaming, but it’s here… finally!

This is where panic sets in. You are responsible for this mobile campaign… for the rest of its life. Because of this, you want to do everything in your power to nurture it, to grow it, and to have it reach its fullest potential. (One day it might even go down in the history books as one of the best mobile campaigns that ever lived)

It is important that in this phase of the mobile campaign’s life that you keep an eye on it all times. Monitoring it constantly, checking for any problems, and addressing those problems immediately. It is delicate little being and it takes special care.

Phase 3: Adolescence.

Adolescents need nurturing. Adolescents grow. You want your adolescent campaign to reach its fullest potential. But how?

Nurturing is an important first step. You need to give your mobile campaign attention. It is not okay to set it and forget it (it’s not a Ron Popeil gadget for goodness sake). You need to look at your campaign goals and see how the campaign is performing against those goals. If it is underperforming, it needs to go to tutoring. Re-evaluate your campaign strategy and be flexible with it.

If executed well, the campaign will grow itself. The power of mobile is the pass-along that happens. If your campaign includes running mobile coupons, people are going to forward those coupons to all of their friends. Make sure that in all of your messaging there is an awareness component. You would want your child to make new friends and be exposed to different kinds of people. Same goes for your mobile campaign. Make sure that people know how to get involved.

Help your campaign make friends!

Phase 4: Adulthood.

Your mobile campaign has grown up now.

I’m sure you could identify how easy it is to get set in your routine – but routine in the mobile world is not good. Whether your campaign has exceeded all expectations, and especially if it hasn’t, don’t continue to do the same old things.

The world is growing and changing at amazing rates. The same thing can be said of the mobile world. If you don’t adapt, you won’t succeed. If your mobile campaign doesn’t adapt, it won’t succeed either.

Phase 5: Senior Citizen Status.

This is the one place where a mobile campaign is not exactly like your child. You would want your child, who has worked hard through their whole life, to kick back, relax, and retire – but not your mobile campaign.

Life-cycle messaging is an important aspect. Think about how you can continue to communicate with your customers via mobile. The sky really is the limit – especially as mobile continues to grow and evolve.

So there you have it. Sure it isn’t as extensive as What to Expect When You Are Expecting, but hopefully this should, at the very least, make you feel a little less anxious about bringing a new mobile campaign into the world.

You are now fit to be the parent of a stellar mobile campaign.

50% of the world’s population has a mobile device. Only 10% of the world’s population has Internet. So what do you think is the best way to reach the most people?

Hey wanna go mobile?
In the old days, it was pretty easy to reach your consumer. If you ran an ad on one of the three TV networks, chances were, they heard your message loud and clear. But now connecting with your customer takes a lot more work. That is, unless you try to connect with them with an item they don’t leave home without – their mobile device.

Mobile marketing provides new ways to connect with customers. You might create a mobile Web site, serve up mobile ad banners for other mobile sites, send text messages, offers or coupons and well as provide mobile applications.

Mobile provides a totally new way for customers to experience and interact with a brand. Let’s say you’re a manufacturer of consumer electronics and your customer is shopping for speakers right now in a large home electronics store. They can scan the product bar code with their phone and receive user reviews, right then and there. Talk about opportunity.

Who’s on the go?
More and more people are going mobile with each passing year. In the United States, 84 million people, or 40% of all mobile users, have a web-enabled device and supporting data plan. They’re young, diverse and ready to listen to your message. In fact, 40% of users in the 18 to 34 age demographic were willing to accept advertising on their mobile device if they are going to receive a discount or desired content. The numbers are excellent, with a 10% response rate to ad click-throughs.

The mobile mantra: keep it simple.
Designing for mobile applications is really an exercise in restraint. The reasons you log onto a site are different for the mobile user compared to the home computer surfer. In fact, mobile users visit 6.4 Web sites a month, while home computer users visit an average of 100 sites. So you have to ask yourself, “Why would a user be visiting our site on their mobile device?”

Well, most likely because they want to:

• locate
• order
• enter a competition
• receive email
• buy
• forward
• video
• vote

How to speak mobilese.
There’s basically two ways to communicate with people. You can provide them with information that they’re interested in. Or you can actively engage them in your message.

If you choose to impart information to your customers, you have to make sure your message is relevant. If not, they will tune your message out with the click of a delete button. Production costs may be quite substantial and there’s a chance that they could perceive the message as spam so relevancy is the key.

Engaging customers means involving them in an interactive way. With the ability to text or send photos or video, mobile devices are the perfect medium for this strategy. Because customers opt in, spam perception is almost non-existent.

The following are a variety of mobile media tactics used to reach customers.

SMS/MMS.
SMS (simple messaging service) is the way people communicate these days. (Imagine, using a mobile device to talk, how very 90s.) Texting is available to any phone user and doesn’t require mobile web service. It’s ideal for reaching the largest number of users.

A great promo for BBC News invited viewers to text whether they thought the forces in Iraq were liberators or occupiers. The billboard recorded results.

Slightly more involved, MMS (multi-media messaging service) text messaging allows mobile users to share photos, video and audio. MMS is an obvious choice for viral, sharing, and live campaigns.

An integrated campaign for Nationwide invited viewers to send a picture of themselves that promptly appeared on a Times Square billboard.

SMS and MMS both have high retention rates. After all, it’s pretty hard to delete a text without reading it first. Production costs are often quite low and they’re simple to create and deploy. And the fantasy of every marketer, SMS and MMS campaigns are trackable.

Mobile display ads.
What’s marketing without ads? Mobile display ads appear on mobile-enabled Web sites. Or they service banner ads as the result of a mobile search. Mobile ads are the perfect way to round out a mobile media plan. But as in the offline world, media buys must correctly target the appropriate audience to be effective.

Because mobile ads are new, they have high click-through rates around 10%. (Just like in the early days of the Internet when banner ads enjoyed similarly high CTRs). But in the mobile arena, there are even more size and display restrictions and a correspondingly limited supply of ad space.

Land Rover served up a mobile landing page as a response to mobile ads. Customers could investigate vehicles, request a brochure or share with a friend.

Mobile sites.
Mobile Web sites are sites that are designed specifically to be viewed from a mobile device. In keeping with the mobile mantra of simplicity, they are usually pared down versions of standard sites. They provide a unique opportunity to reach consumers on their terms, wherever they are.

When designing a mobile a site, you have to imagine yourself in the customer’s shoes and figure out what they would want in a mobile environment. You can’t simply repurpose your existing content for the mobile world. After all, a customer isn’t likely to read corporate press releases while on the go. On the other hand, store locations are probably the most visited mobile element for many retail operations.

Amazon’s mobile site allows customers to search products, read review and purchase products in just a couple of clicks.

Mobile sites are top notch when it comes to lead generation, direct sales and branding. But they can be costly and they have to be maintained to be effective. (After all, you don’t want to have a customer drive to a store if it closed last month.) In some ways, mobile sites do limit creative expression because you’re often designing for the slower speeds and smaller screens of older mobile devices all in the name of accessibility. But with creativity and ingenuity (and of course simplicity), a mobile site can make a very branded statement.

Search.
Search just might be what mobile is made for. It’s super relevant. I’m hungry. I’m looking for the closest pizza place right here, right now.

Search helps customers learn about your service or product. But they problem is, if you’re not in the top 5 results, you won’t be found. And while search doesn’t have the glitzy appeal of other forms of marketing, it is certainly one of the most effective. Because when you consider the three most visited mobile sites are Google, Yahoo! and MSN, it makes sense to be there. So take the effort to use short copy featuring targeted keywords in your meta tags, headline tags and body text.

Why mobile is going full throttle yet.
Mobile is well, cutting-edge. It’s about as forward thinking as you can get so it will take a little time before it is fully adopted. The following are a couple of reasons why marketers may still be hesitant to incorporate mobile tactics.

• Poor user experience – It’s true that some of the first mobile campaigns were exercises in poor user experiences. But, as devices have been built more capable, and marketers have learned from their past mistakes, user experiences are much improved.
• Cost of data plans – as greater bandwidths become ubiquitous, the cost of data plans for mobile devices will no longer be a barrier.
• Limits on creativity – As earlier generations of mobile devices become obsolete, technical limitations will decrease. It’s only been very recently that wider bandwidths and enhanced device capabilities, have allowed greater creativity in mobile campaigns.
• Analytics – The simple fact is there aren’t many mobile analytics providers out there yet. Industry giants like HBX and Site Catalyst are playing catch-up, and while they currently offer basic reporting, they will soon deliver the more granular reporting that marketers need and want.
• Hesitant population – The use of mobile is growing. In fact, the fastest growing segment is adults who are adopting mobile as means to communicate with their tech savvy children.
• Fear of mobile as intrusive – A marketer’s greatest fear is to be intrusive. But when customers opt-in, they are saying “I am interested in your message” loud and clear.

The mobile version of this article.
With mobile you must:

• Be navigable
• Be relevant
• Be engaging
• Add value

In this article I read, Papa John’s states that their average order value via their mobile web site is $20.00. That means they’ve had somewhere in the neighborhood of 50,000 orders placed via their mobile web site alone. 50,000!

But the brilliance of what they are doing is not in the number of orders they receive, but that they are serving their customers better – wherever they are. Their customers no longer have to sit at a computer to place an order. They have the possibility to order from the device that goes everywhere with them – their mobile phone.

I’ve seen and heard it too many times, “We’re worried about putting our marketing dollars into Mobile . We’re afraid we won’t see a return on our investment.” Well, Papa John’s managed to get 50,000 orders to come from mobile site alone. That doesn’t even include the SMS and widget orders that come in. Clearly companies are seeing a return on their investments in Mobile.

Now, I’m not suggesting that all of our clients are going to see $1 million dollars worth of orders come through Mobile, but what I have seen, through the Mobile tactics we’ve employed with Souplantation, is an incredible interest in people using their mobile device to explore and learn more about the brand. This is what I mean when you hear me say mobile can’t just be quantified and rationalized based on simple, “I spend this much to get my customers to buy this much” mentality.

Done right, Mobile can make your brand, product, service… whatever, more relevant, more convenient, and more accessible. There’s actually a lot of value to you, and your customer, to be all of those things. Papa John’s understands that, and more and more, other brands are realizing this too.

Creating that opportunity for brand interactions, via mobile web site, mobile application, etc., may not return $1 million in sales, but it does provide more value for you and your customers than the alternative – no mobile presence at all.

I sat on this discovery for a few days. I didn’t know what to make of it. I was just too foreign to me. But after a few days I started my quest to answer the question that had been plaguing me… “Why is Google advertising mobile search?”

The answer may not be as obvious as you’d suspect.

I did a little digging around and found some interesting information to support the theory that Google is losing the battle on Mobile search. Yes, I said it, “Google is losing the battle on Mobile Search.” [NOTE: If I go missing tomorrow please search for me at the GooglePlex – where I’ll likely be held in detention with all those other people who have said that Google isn’t number 1 at everything on the Web.]

“Where did he come up with such an audacious suggestion?” you may ask. Well, I found an interesting statistic to back my hypothesis up. Both Verizon and T-Mobile offer a mobile search portal to their users (84 million users in total). If just 10% of those users used search on their carriers portal, there’d be 8.41 million users – twice as many users than Google Mobile.

But it doesn’t end there. Encyclopedia Britannica has also entered the fray with their mobile search, as has Alltel wireless with their own Mobile search solution. And yet, there’s more. Some search providers are already rolling out speech enabled mobile search – thus breaking down the barriers of mainstream usability – namely data plan costs, network speeds and hardware issues. So, while everyone may not have a device that displays search results well, they certainly have the ability to speak there query into the device. It is a phone after all.

I could continue but I believe you get the point.

So, what does Google’s campaign really mean? Their campaign is a proactive attempt to get us (i.e. – Mobile web users) to put them top-of-mind when we go to do our mobile searches. It means that they understand the challenges they face in getting users to adopt their version of Mobile search. It means they’ve got some catching up to do.