Mobile marketing is one of those big, hairy, fuzzy beasts that no one seems to really have their arms around, yet. Everyone knows that it’s coming, it’s going to be a major part of how brands market and sell products and services, but few retailers, publishers or advertising agencies have a crystal clear sense of exactly what “mobile marketing” means for their business. In particular, the print media and the social media landscape is teeming with change – some good, some bad – and risks and rewards abound.

SMS oriented marketing has been producing amazing results for brands that have executed it well and tied SMS calls to action into an integrated marketing campaign.  Although, for many, SMS has been an expensive and complicated pursuit into mobile marketing and the payoff has yet to materialize. For brands that have executed SMS well, the click-through rates have been astounding. We expect those leading-edge adopters to be among the first to try image search enabling their print media.

Like most new media marketing techniques, the results have varied based on creativity, execution and overall integration into a holistic brand management strategy.  Social media marketing has picked up a lot of momentum in 2008 and it looks like it’s going to be a strong piece of integrated interactive media campaigns moving forward. The number of brands on Facebook are growing rapidly, while Twitter is becoming an increasingly popular way for raving brand fans to communicate with one another, and in some cases, the brand itself. Twitter has made social interaction with brands faster and easier than ever.

OK, so you’re probably asking what this has to do with mobile marketing and image search, right? Well, the answer is that mobile marketing is the “big picture” next step in the evolution of integrated marketing campaigns and image search is how we’re going to get there. You see, consumers, brands, advertisers and social media mavens have made it clear that simple, fast, elegant ways of expressing their interests are what ultimately stick in the marketplace. Perhaps the most important part of that is the SIMPLE part.  If it’s easy people will try it.  If it’s hard, forget it. What better way to make linking the physical world of print media to the digital world of the Internet and social media than to leverage pictures…

The science behind image search is definitely not trivial, but Pongr can execute and integrate image search into the existing world of print and online media so that the link via image search is elegant and seamless. So, think of it like this, 90% or more of the consumers buying new mobile devices in the United States will have cameras on their mobile phones by mid 2009. Those users are fully embracing the notion of using their phone to take pictures of their friends, places and stuff.  Picture sharing through mobile has become one of the fastest growing major attractions for Facebook and other social networks.  The message is clear: people like taking pictures from their cell phones.  For marketers looking to tap into the promise of mobile marketing, what better way to actually execute an integrated media campaign than tying together print advertisements with a mobile call to action and links to the digital world!

This may sound a bit pie in the sky right now, but the pace of “what’s possible” on mobile is moving so fast that there is 100% certainly that mobile marketing will start to take shape in aggressive, ubiquitous, practical ways through 2009 and 2010. A few years from now, we will be beyond the questions of “how do I leverage location awareness in mobile marketing campaigns?” and “how can I extend the reach of print media to social networks?” and we will being to wonder what’s next…

As the entire team at Pongr embarks on a journey to help bring practical mobile marketing solutions to brands, agencies and publishers looking for smart partners (that’s us!) that can help provide better service and deeper insight into consumer trends on mobile and social networks, we will be sharing our thoughts and experiences in mobile marketing and image search through this blog.