Mobile Marketing and Commerce Strategies » Demand Generation

As mobile devices proliferate, companies are beginning to realize there's a new way to interact with consumers: offering free digital content in exchange for their time and data. Brands have leveraged freebies to entice consumers into engagement for decades, but this form of 21st-century bartering may prove more powerful than any before it. Best of all, device owners are willing to participate in this exchange, presenting marketers with a highly lucrative opportunity.

As the social network continues the initial rollout of its new Facebook Home Android overlay, Facebook is already looking into potential methods of monetizing the new product. One feature gaining a lot of attention is tap-to-call.

Mobile social advertising is winning over marketers in key verticals, but few big brands will advertise their businesses solely on Facebook. Although two-thirds of smartphone owners are clicking into social networks on mobile devices, a heavy age bias compromises social’s mass media claims. Brands will give mobile social advertising a serious part, but in a supporting role.

Given the company's standing in the mobility industry, it's long been thought that mobile payments won't take off until Apple jumps onboard--which it has failed to do thus far. By the sound of it, the consumer electronics giant has no intention of diving into mobile payments anytime soon.

Content owners, service providers and publishers have invested in mobile to promote brands and win new customers since the early 2000s. But innovation has outpaced the mobile presences resulting from iterative approaches. Media companies should take a fresh look at mobile's powerful marketing tools--and the place to start is by considering context.

The newest term in retail and banking is "omni-channel," best described as creating a seamless, connected experience across all channels of consumer interactions, from social, e-mail and voice to SMS, Web and the latest mobile application (in-app). But how do you get there?

Twitter's recent deal with big ad agency Starcom MediaVest represents another milestone in social's bid to conquer advertising. Until now, large ad agencies' hesitation to allocate budget to social has contributed to a wide gap between social media usage and ad dollars spent, and that gap is a vast chasm in mobile. Smartphone owners clearly love social media. So why are advertisers steering clear?

While mobile money famously serves the unbanked in the developing world, unbanked users in developed markets like North America and Europe are comparatively underserved. Prepaid operators should look to seize the opportunity--but must realize capitalizing on this lucrative market won't be easy.

Marketers quickly discover that mobile fails to deliver on the promise of personalized ads, and the hitch is accessing data on the user. Apps fill that data gap and offer a user-led path through the privacy maze.

Retailers aren't yet tying loyalty programs to mobile transactions, and that means they are foregoing multiple opportunities to win new customers, foster loyalty and reap thousands of dollars in improved revenue per year.

Where the mobile coupon dollars flow, so go mobile payment revenues. Players serious about rolling out mobile payment initiatives should invest now in building viable mobile couponing programs.