Five major trends in mobile marketing in 2010

What will be some of the major trends in mobile marketing in 2010? In the New Year, digital marketers are going to experience a year of changes that will incorporate both the transformational and the incremental. Brands will allocate larger portions of their digital media plan towards mobile to further capitalize on the most personal marketing medium every devised.

Here are just a few of the trends that industry experts forecast in 2010:

Augmented reality: Augmented reality is the ability to merge a view of the physical world with enhanced data (or imagery) that is computer generated and thereby providing a richer view of the real world.

Using the GPS and the camera, your smartphone can sense what you are pointing at and show relevant data for that place. For example, a review for a restaurant or virtual signposts to help direct you to a location.

Many experts expect 2010 will be the year that this technology begins to be adopted on mobile phones but will remain a bell and whistle for a while. Although augmented reality will appear in more applications, consumers will still prefer the list and map versions to search results on a usage basis.

Growth of the mobile Web: US mobile Web will reach nearly 100 million unique users per month in 2010. Combined with the accelerated adoption of smartphones and mobile-specific sites, the mobile Web will reach more than one-half of the all consumers.

Geo-fencing: A geo-fence is a virtual field around any location that is used to trigger a mobile marketing message to a user when they enter or exit the area. Many experts forecast that 2010 is the year we will hear geo-fence become part of marketers’ vocabulary.

Expect to see retailers take advantage of this capability in exciting new ways        such as sending personalized messages to consumers leaving a sporting event or concert and to blanketing beach goers with messages on a sunny Saturday afternoon.

Linking CRM databases and mobile marketing: Marketers are beginning to recognize the uniquely personal relationships that consumers have with their mobile phones.

For retail marketers, combining this with the CRM data that they are already collecting about their customers (past purchases and areas of interest) offers the opportunity to deliver personalized messages when a user is near one of their stores.

In 2010, we retailers will begin to take advantage of mobile CRM to extend their current data-driven marketing programs into mobile. Some retailers will get it and, unfortunately, others won’t.

New entrants into mobile: Advertisers, who previously relied on more traditional advertising channels, will increasingly allocate portions of their media spend to mobile in 2010.

More than 25 percent of brands anticipate spending more than $5 million on mobile advertising in 2010, up from 12.5 percent spending more than $5 million in 2009.

The leading mobile advertising verticals will include even more aggressive budgets from the pharmaceutical, automotive, travel and retail verticals and will challenge entertainment, telecom and portals for premium placements.