Mobile offers marketers an opportunity to access audiences anywhere, anytime. But the marketing message has to be worthy of this potential invasion of personal space.

When an emerging marketing medium surfaces, the early adopters scramble to test their creative talents and marketing acumen on the new stage. They then make the call as to whether budget should be permanently invested there. If the answer is "no," one can simply move on, but the "uh-oh" moment comes when the new medium looks like it might actually have some staying power. New mobile applications are a good example. Today, many marketers are left scrambling to figure out how this popular technology can play a role in their marketing mix, without getting them stuck in the hype cycle or making them lose sight of other channels.

Increasing adoption of mobile technologies like SMS and MMS is creating viable new communications opportunities, but is also delivering a whole new set of complications to marketers: new measurement metrics, new audience types and new engagement methods. Mastering all of this is a major challenge. And there's the further complication of mobile's almost continuous evolution, which forces companies to figure out how to maximize each stage of the mobile marketing lifecycle, be it delivering basic text message alerts or customized, interactive content.

While mobile is aptly named the "Third Screen" -- it extends current online and offline marketing efforts -- marketers must understand that mobile is a distinct distribution channel. Some customers will respond more positively than others to marketing on this platform.

But what makes it a sensitive marketing channel is also what makes it so effective. Mobile devices are typically with people every minute of every day, essentially a necessary "accessory" that few people are able to function without. This fact differentiates mobile from other channels and affects the types of messages smart marketers should deliver.

Two examples of effective mobile messaging
European marketers, who have been working with the channel for years, have shown that mobile communication must either be highly relevant or highly important to be effective. Take two large financial services institutions -- AXA Bank and Boursorama -- as examples. AXA Bank, a large-multi channel retail bank in Europe, sends just four text messages a year, on average, to its customers, typically on a special interest rate or limited time offer. Because AXA only reserves the channel for important news, it is able to drive extremely high response rates to these offerings. AXA Bank has also implemented capabilities allowing customers to go to the company website and set up their own mobile alerts to receive near real-time notification for events like a drop in stock price. Customers can also be alerted when their accounts go above or below a certain limit, which allows them an easy and accessible way to monitor their funds. These alerts are not looked at as intrusive mass messages, but rather as a valued service to the customer supporting long-term relationship building.

On the other hand, Boursorama, an online brokerage firm, uses SMS to send critical updates on stock price shifts that its customers have subscribed to. Interestingly, Boursorama uses SMS as part of a workflow with email: the first message goes to the customer via email, and if after a certain time the email hasn't been opened, the customer receives a text message. The message is highly relevant and highly important.

The personalization factor
Because the message needs to be highly relevant, marketers must have the technological infrastructure to automatically ensure they know who they are communicating with. Before sending a mobile communication, a marketer should feel reasonably confident that each recipient is amenable to mobile communication, either based on a direct request to be contacted via mobile or other customer data collected. In the banking scenario, for example, a 23-year-old young professional who does her banking almost entirely online is probably a better target than a 61 year-old parent who still goes to the teller to deposit his checks.

Monitoring performance
Once a campaign has begun, the next step is to gather information on performance. You might be thinking, "Of course I'm going to get a report on whether metrics were hit." While that's important, you also need data on a much more granular level: "How did each and every customer respond, and what does that mean for the way in which I will market to them next time?" Sending a compelling text message or directing a customer or prospect to a WAP site won't get you very far unless you understand how to follow up. What will be your next point of contact, an email, another text message or (gasp) a direct mail piece?

Conclusion
Mobile is separate but equal. It's a new channel that opens up dramatic new opportunities to engage customers 24/7. But it can't operate in a silo: Mobile efforts have to feed the larger marketing beast. So to keep things humming, marketers need to have the infrastructure in place to bridge the gap between emerging and traditional channels and to effectively interact with each customer at any point in time.