Chief Marketer 2012 Mobile Marketing Survey: Mobile Goes With Everything

Call it the “new black” of marketing. Mobile seems to be integrating into campaigns of all types, and in fact is being used more as a bridge for cross-platform campaigns and less as a channel on its own.

That’s one finding from the latest version of the Chief Marketer Mobile Marketing Survey. Marketers tell CM that they are getting their messages into mobile primarily as a way to drive prospects or audiences to campaigns taking place elsewhere. Whether it’s a video that’s meant to be shared via social channels—increasingly accessed first on mobile devices—a QR code that drives commuters to a web site, or an SMS campaign sending out offers to be redeemed in stores, mobile is becoming the connective tissue whose most important role today is holding multichannel campaigns together.

“Everyone’s got a phone and keeps it close most of the day,” said one respondent. “Depending on your aim, you can reach a mass audience or one as targeted as a specific town, block or street. That makes mobile flexible and useful in ways other channels can’t manage.”

Fifty-seven percent of all survey respondents said they integrated mobile elements into their marketing last year, against 39% who said their brands did not use mobile, and 3% who did not know. (Figures don’t always total 100% due to rounding.) But only 30% said they ran self-contained or mobile-specific campaigns last year, while two-thirds of those polled did not. So for most of those who deployed campaign elements in mobile last year, the channel was a tactical asset rather than a strategic one.

But that pattern might change, and soon. More respondents (51%) said they plan to run more mobile-only marketing this year. And more than a quarter of those polled (26%) said they are at least undecided about whether to run a mobile-centric campaign in 2012, possibly adding to that 51%.

Those results suggest that mobile is morphing from a helper technology that makes other campaigns work better into a standalone, standout platform star in its own right—while retaining its capacity for providing “assists” for goals scored in other media.

Source: by Brian Quinton | Chief Marketer on Jun. 5, 2012