Steve Levy, president of Canadian Market Research, Ipsos Reid, presented highlights from a survey of marketing executives at Marketing Week today in Toronto. As stated in the afternoon daily, Steve indicated that only about 12% of marketers are actually incorporating mobile into their marketing mix.

The reason… apparently infrastructure barriers. Huh?

The only barriers are marketers and brands who haven’t yet educated themselves on where / how mobile fits into the marketing mix NOW.

With over 75% of Canadians actively using mobile phones and with numbers approaching 40 billion for SMS messages sent in 2009, I don’t know how anybody could say infrastructure is barrier to leveraging mobile.

Earlier this year I blogged about Rogers breathing rarified air with the introduction of their 7.2 mbps network. Since then they have nearly trippled those speeds to 21 mbps which has also since been matched by Bell and Telus with their new 3.5G national network.  High speed (nearly broadband) wireless is now truly available to most Canadians.

Having said all that, any marketer reading this post who has yet to incorporate mobile into their marketing mix should erase this post from their memory and go back to their usual ways.

Understanding how to use mobile in the marketing mix is one of our agency differentiators. The longer inaccurate messages are propagated about the mobile opportunity the better our competitive advantage will continue to be

Although some have called bluetooth marketing “blue spam” marketing, WCIT has taken an approach that should be considered best practice – they have bluetooth zones setup in malls that encourage consumers to register & make their devices discoverable. In return,  consumers who enter the zone can download something of value to their mobile device (like a mall catalogue of sales, store locator etc…) and don’t feel like they are being disrupted at random.

Permission based bluetooth marketing can be a great extension of your digital, mobile, or multi-channel campaign.

Petros Kondos from WCIT contacted me earlier this week with a new use for bluetooth systems – they can also be used as advanced foot counting systems. Having installed new systems in 25 malls already,  WCIT is now also using their system to count foot traffic in malls and have validated their approach as being more accurate than traditional foot traffic measuring systems.

Each mobile device has a unique bluetooth ID which does not contain any personal information or even a link to the mobile number. The consumer is therefore anonymous to the system – although track-able throughout a period of time. This means their system will not count the same person twice – but at the same time they can track where that consumer walks within the mall itself.  Although the best retailers have their own shopper marketing strategy & zones within their space, having an additional layer of data to validate behaviour would be very valuable.

Shopper marketing professionals would jump through hoops of fire to get such detailed & accurate customer analytic information.

The BlueTrac system tracks:

• Number of times the same mobile device returns to a specific mall / store within a day, week, or month
• Time of visit
• Amount of time spent in one area
• Entry and departure times
• Patterns of customer visits

The system can also learn to distinguish between consumers and mall staff – so the data can be segmented accordingly.

Comparative research around this technology and customer volumes in malls has produced accurate extrapolations to include total customer volumes within retail spaces. On the basis of detected bluetooth devices, BlueTrace can indicate total customer footfall within a mall or specific retail area within a given period.

A secondary useful stat that came out of this study is that on average 7% of all consumers entering the mall had a mobile device that was bluetooth enabled and activated.

Although the data relates to the South African market, it’s still directional relevant for the Canadian market.  We know through local bluetooth network Broadburst that of those who have bluetooth devices that are activated, around 3% respond to bluetooth requests within their network – still far above traditional media responses.

I’ve updated my standard mobile marketing 101 presentation deck to include updated stats and points of view of how the landscape is evolving and where the opportunities are for marketers to extend their multi-media campaigns into this channel.

Topics covered include: Canadian landscape stats, the 8 mobile consumer segments, SMS Marketing, Mobile Web, Mobile Applications, designing for mobile, mobile media, 2d / QR codes, Bluetooth, and a few points on what to expect next.

This is meant to be in introduction and overview – but let me know if you think I’ve missed anything you believe is really important. Feedback on content welcome too!

Today the mobile marketing association is releasing it’s annual mobile attitude and usage study which measures overall mobile usage by demographic group for many of the largest markets in the world.

Unfortunately,  Canada was not one of the countries surveyed; however, findings and trends reported from the U.S. are directionally true for Canada.

I’ve sent an email to the MMA requesting details on why Canada could not be included this time around and offered support for enabling it in the future.

Here are some highlights as lifted from their press release:

• Overall interest in mobile marketing varies by geography.  The United States and Western Europe report comparable interest levels in mobile marketing; similar interest levels are also noted among mobile phone users in Asia Pacific and Latin American markets.
  • One-in-four mobile users in the US and Western Europe express strong or moderate interest in mobile marketing.
  • Interest levels are higher in Asia Pacific and Latin American markets where roughly one-half and two-thirds of mobile users respectively express strong or moderate interest.

• In all regions, “text-to-win” and interactive voting campaigns are the most common efforts in which mobile users have participated.
  • Echoing receptivity to mobile marketing overall, Asia Pacific and Latin American markets report greater participation in mobile marketing efforts; roughly one-in-five mobile users in these regions report having participated in mobile marketing efforts in the past year.

• Creating strong market opportunity for mobile marketers, across all countries and regions surveyed, heavy penetration and reliance on mobile phones combined with strong feature, text and mobile web usage indicate a willingness to accept mobile phones as devices that reach beyond traditional communications.
  • More than half of mobile consumers (regardless of market) report that their mobile phone is “highly important” to their daily life.
  • Mobile feature usage of non voice applications (text, mobile web, camera and picture messaging) is strong in all markets.

“Overall interest levels in the mobile marketing concept vary by market and geographic region – however, common in all markets is the importance of mobile phones in daily life.  Further, all markets show an ever increasing reliance on services that are precursors and enablers to mobile marketing efforts,” said Beth Ritchey, Vice President, Synovate Tech and Telecom.  “This year’s Mobile Attitude and Usage Study contains a wealth of information geared to help marketers understand market trends and opportunities in both individual markets and geographic regions.”

The global study covers the following markets: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, United Kingdom and United States. The study is available on Monday, November 17, free of charge, to all current MMA Global and Regional members and available at a discount for MMA Local Council members.  The market studies will also be available, for sale, after December 1.  For more information, visit www.mmaglobal.com

What do you think? Are these trends relevant to Canada as I believe? How about in your own market?

Q: Are there certain age groups or regions that have been more responsive to mobile marketing and how would you predict this to change?

A: Just like the interweb, the younger generations were the quickest to adopt SMS and are still the most likely to respond to a call to action via sms

Having said that, keep the following three things in mind:

1. Parents and grand parents are fast growing segments for SMS because they’ve realized that in order to stay somewhat in touch with their kids and grand kids, they had to learn how to text. As a result, SMS adoption is penetrating all demographics and should no longer be considered a tween or teen obsession only
2. How many of your friends have blackberries? Ever notice that they are emailing their co-workers & friends as often as the kids sending SMS back and forth? With RIM having around 40% market share in Canada, there are lots of people who are exhibiting the same behaviours and dependancies on mobile as those who are more SMS reliant.
3. We’ve found that the “professional age” demographic is far more likely to go on to the mobile web than other demographics. The reason is that many of these folks are using PDAs (like blackberry) that come with nicer & larger screens and data plans that are paid for by their company.

Response rates for mobile marketing can be good or great across all demographics. It’s not unusual to get 6% on well targeted mobile campaigns for example.

The key is knowing your audience and understanding how to deliver your message in the most audience relevant context (sms, mobile web, bluetooth etc…) with a relevant message.

With 3.3 billion mobile devices in use worldwide today, mobile is already a mass medium and marketers who figure out how to integrate mobile into their marketing mix now will be at a huge advantage tomorrow when mobile goes from experimental to essential.

The annual CMA national convention starts today and there is lots of content to choose from. Marketers working in the Interactive and mobile space (or plan to), should plan on attending the following keynotes and sessions: 

1. Seth Godin keynote. His blog is one of the most popular in the industry – even though there is some discussion over the fact his blog doesn’t allow comemnts
2. Keeping Customers Hooked: Integrating E-mail with Mobile Technologies to Increase Customer Retention. Led by Chris Carder – co-founder and CEO of thindata
3. Mastering Paid Search.  Led by Andrew Goodman – Principle, Page Zero Media
4. Mobile Marketing…More than Just Marketing. Led by Michael Carter - President and CEO, Mythum Interactive
5. The Human Web – led by Douglas Walker
6. Finding Waldo: The Highly Selective Art of Behavioural Ad Targeting. Led by Hunter Madsen
   Marketing Director, Yahoo! Canada
7. Marketing Lessons from Second Life’s Fashion Designers. Led by Kate Trgovac - President and Chief Catalyst, LintBucket Media 

Be sure to check out the following two articles posted on onedegree.ca and the CMA blog this month (in case you missed their original postings)

1. Will Bluetooth Become a Sweet Tooth for Marketers? (onedegree.ca)
2. 6 Tips for building and managing consent for mobile marketing (CMA blog)

Join me on May 15th for  strategy’s Mobile Marketing Workshop at Revival in Toronto, Canada where you can learn about how to successfully integrate mobile marketing into your multi-channel campaigns.

I’ve been asked to sit on the end of day mobile marketing panel discussion entitled “The Good, The Bad and The Ugly”

Well-executed mobile campaigns yield positive user response and increase customer engagement. To avoid consumer backlash, you must understand the subtleties of how to use mobile effectively.

What works in traditional media does not work on mobile!

The workshop agenda includes:

• consumer perception of mobile advertising

• campaign best practices

• emerging mobile technologies

• what works now in Canada

• the role of mobile in the marketing mix

• interactive panel with senior execs from mobile marketing agencies and technology providers on how mobile as an ad medium needs to be approached, and its distinct differences from other media

You can register for this event here. 

After the event, join me at the “Five Years of Great Text” bash presented by the CWTA.

Any questions? Comment, send me an SMS or drop me a line the old fashion way with an email.

As predicted, the CWTA has reported that the total number of SMS (text messages) sent in 2007 exceeded 10 billion!

Approximately 10.1 billion messages were sent in 2007 – up from 4.3 billion in 2006 or an increase of 133%

1.2 billion messages were sent in December alone. With total volume more than doubling every year since 2002, it’s amazing to think we could reach 20 billion messages sent in 2008.

I’m looking for specific demographic details to follow… although it’s safe to say that with over 10 billion messages served last year, this is no longer just a young person’s channel.

More and more of our client are now following recommendations to extend “interactive” marketing programs with mobile / SMS.

We just launched a contest as part of our launch of mastersgolf.ca this week which includes a mobile / SMS component. If you can predict the top 10 finishers on the 08 Masters Leader board, you win $1,000,000.  I’m looking forward to see how participation in mobile compares to the pure online option. Stay tuned…

I’ll be getting on a plane Sunday afternoon to Barecelona, Spain for the 2008 Mobile World Congress – formely known as the 3GSM.

My plan is to blog at least once a day with summaries, points of view and perspective on a variety of mobile related topics including: 

1. How MMS is working as a marketing device in Europe
2. Applications of LBS (location based services) in Asia
3. Bluetooth marketing messaging in Africa
4. Mobile Search
5. Mobile web vs. Mobile widgets
6. Mobile advertising platforms, case studies and trends
7. Mobile Social Networking
8. Demos of 4G technology
9. New devices, or device trends
10. Off-deck content and applications

The plan is to also attend several events related to the conference including the Mobile Monday Peer Awards, Mobile Entertainment forum, Canadian breakfast forum, Mobile Jam session and the GoMo News blender.

Do you have other topics you’d like to hear about while i’m there? Send me an SMS, comment or email me through the contact form on this website.