Smart phones are huge and mobile marketing is the current big thing  !!!  How many times have   you been told that?  Probably about as many times as you’ve been told your business is changing.  Probably about as many times as somebody has told you that social networking is an absolute must.

Nielsen predicts smart phones will overtake feature phones by the third quarter of 2011 which means that these handy little devices will have a major influence on how we market and communicate.

There are basically three ways to use smart phone technology in your marketing.

1. The first is SMS or texting.  Sixty percent of the U.S. uses texting.  The cost is relatively low, but you get a static, flat and limited communication with little or no user engagement beyond sending/receiving.  The texter and textee do not have to be very sophisticated technologically and they certainly don’t have to be good spellers.  ROFLMHO.SMS is best used for voting.  American Idol had over 178 million text messages in its 2009 season.  It can also be used for sweepstakes, trivia contests, coupons, opting in for alerts and updates and calls-to-action from other media.The best thing about SMS is that it’s cheap and fast to market.  Remember that privacy is paramount.  There is a code of conduct available on the Mobile Marketing Association website.
2. The mobile web is growing at breakneck speed.  Twent-five percent of us use our phones to access websites.  And that number is growing rapidly, coinciding with the growth of smart phones in general.  If you’re talking to Millennials, you can bet that they are looking at your website on their smart phone.The cost of making your website mobile friendly is low to moderate.  You can basically repurpose your existing content in a new layout, with some different navigation and programming.  While it can still be kind of glitchy sometimes, it is steadily improving with faster connections and more powerful devices.  And you can get to market pretty quickly.
3. The sexiest option is the creation of Apps, but it’s not always the best option… though every creative department wants to do them.  Apps generally have a short shelf life…most less than 30 days.  They are expensive to produce for a relatively small audience and they take a long time to get to market.But Apps can be really cool.  They can take advantage of motion graphics, GPS, and accelerometer.  The audience that uses Apps  is pretty technologically advanced.So why would you create an App for your business?  Our advice is that if your idea will improve the life of the user in a meaningful way, go for it.  If it adds to your brand’s utility go for it.  If it deepens the relationship you have with your customer it’s a great idea.  But if you’re developing one just to entertain or fill some creative urge, you’d be better off saving your money because you really don’t need an App for that.  You can probably download one for free.

Gotcha!  By simply reading this article you may have self identified yourself as one of the 40% of marketers who are experimenting with social metrics, learning which works best for you.  Or one of the 37% who struggle to find good ways to measure social activity and its impact.  This all according to a Forrester Research, Inc.  study of Technology Product Management & Marketing Professionals.

Measurement is always a challenge, but it’s more of a challenge if you don’t start with clear expectations of what the social media effort is supposed to do.  Forrester suggests a good way to think about it.  They suggest creating a value chain for social media tactics or ideas.  It goes like this:

Using (specific social activity/approach)      , we help (primary audience) accomplish (target social objective) and make (specific process or goal for the audience) better as measured by     (relevant measures and metrics) which is worth (bottom-line business value)    .

This looks easy enough, and it is easy to write.  The problem is defining the bottom-line business value and sticking to your guns in holding social media accountable.

Nearly every business should require a “bottom-line business value.”  Most marketing activity is judged by its contribution to sales.  Maybe the objective is more and better leads.  More loyal customers.  You could even argue that engaging a customer in a dialog helps you understand their mindsets better.  All legitimate ways of thinking about it.

So, you dive in.  Start a Facebook page.  Put some posts up. And there’s silence.  Deafening silence.  Hello-is-there-anybody-out-there silence.  You’ve seen those pages.  Maybe you have one.

You know if you ran a traditional media campaign and nothing happened, leads dry up, sales are stagnant, awareness doesn’t change that the campaign would die a quick and brutal death.  If you sent a direct mailer that didn’t produce, you’d never send the same mailer again.

But with social media, we have a hard time holding it to the same standards of results.  Why? Is it that we fear that if we’re not doing it someone will think us not current?  Is it that we would admit that we don’t know how to get the audience to engage?  Is it that a failed social media effort wouldn’t look good on our next review?  Or is it that we can’t bear the thought that our target audience is just not that into us?

A record 28,682 students are enrolled at Iowa State University this fall — up 2.6 percent from the previous record set a year ago. What’s even more impressive is the gains occurred in virtually every category: Undergraduate enrollment, international student enrollment, graduate student enrollment, a record number of transfer students and the most diverse student enrollment in the University’s history. And this year’s freshman class is the second largest ever at ISU.

All of this occurred in spite of a declining number of high schools students to draw from.

Lots of colleges and universities around the country are experiencing enrollment increases. The economy has played a big role. But for Iowa State, this year’s records are no anomoly. They continue a steady trend of enrollment increases that have been taking place during the past five years.   

We’re proud to have played a part in helping Iowa State achieve these milestones with campaigns that have invited teens to “Enjoy the Adventure at Iowa State.” These campaigns succeed year after year because they address teens’ anticipation that their college years will deliver the best experience of their lives, the chance to discover who they are and what they want to become, in an environment where they fit in.

One of the biggest factors impacting Millennials is the impact of a college education and financing that education.  Study after study shows that the college graduate is likely to make a million dollars more than the non-college graduate over the course of their lifetime.

Yet this economy has millennial graduates questioning the wisdom of their decision.  Jobs are scarce and student loan payments come due every month.  A COUNTRY Financial survey noted that 31 percent of Americans have borrowed money to finance their educations. Nearly two-thirds have paid off their obligation and only 16 percent said it had a significant impact on their decision making.

Forty percent of Millennials indicate that their student loans have a significant impact on their lives, a full 24 percent difference from the general population.  This differential is either an indication of the impact of the economy on Millennial mindsets, or an indication that pain mellows with time, or both.

Millennials have been described as the coddled, everyone gets a trophy generation and maybe some of that is true.  What certainly is not true, is that this generation is being welcomed into the workforce with open checkbooks.  The economic conditions may, in the end, be more formative on attitudes and work habits of Millennials than most other factors.

They have been forced to be thrifty and conservative with their dollars.  As a result, they may look more than most generations at the true value of the things they buy.  Cheap and good brands like Jimmy John’s and Chipotle Mexican Grill are well positioned to compete for the Millennial fast food dollar.

Cheap and good poses a wholly different challenge for higher education.   The four year university must build value in the four year experience to justify the cost.  It must realize that the college experience is much more than just going to Biology 101.  It is everything involved in helping a young Millennial grow into an adult with potential, dreams and ability.  The result of that experience is the reason students paint their bodies to cheer on their team.

You’d think that a program that’s reduced teen tobacco use by nearly 40% would ooze street cred. But focus groups found that the Iowa Department of Public Health’s youth tobacco prevention program, Just Eliminate Lies (JEL), suffered from its success.Research suggested that JEL messages had credibility and a “national” quality that teens really liked. It was apparent however that the edge needed to be sharpened once again and we needed to do it in a way that wasn’t contrived. So, in November of 2009, JEL launched a high-school aged Battle of the Bands entirely through social media. Using live music that teens created to engage other teens allowed JEL to sharpen its edgy image.

The five month-long, three-phased contest called upon high-school-aged-bands from all over Iowa to submit “auditions” online through JEL’s website (www.JELiowa.org) and JEL-sponsored social networking web pages on Facebook, YouTube, and MySpace became hubs for discussion, voting and competition. Teens interacted by watching and judging the video auditions, voting for their favorite bands through online polls to decide which band would get an all ages gig at a popular Iowa music venue. Anti-tobacco use messages served as a backdrop to stay true to the JEL mission.

Teen members of JEL launched the competition through online word-of-mouth. A promo video produced by ZLRIGNITION created interest on the www.crushotherbands.com website. Grassroots efforts included hanging posters at teen oriented music venues all over Iowa. The “JEL Street Team”, and our sponsors for the event, made sure this campaign had some clout and that JEL’s fingerprints were all over it.

It grew into a statewide phenomenon. In all, 20 bands entered from across the state. Over 2,100 Facebook fans made thousands of positive comments on the fan page. Approximately 4,000 votes were cast over two voting sessions. Four hundred fans came to the final show to witness the JEL Final Battle Live.