I’ve always been intrigued with the concept of proximity marketing, but a perceived lack of interest in the U.S has made any news or advancements in the technology all but lost in the shuffle.  To me the concept provides a unique and inexpensive opportunity for marketers, but there has to be underlying factors prohibiting its advancement, but what are they?

With increased interest surrounding mobile marketing, it’s interesting that proximity marketing has been largely looked over, though both concepts are fundamentally different.  While there’s really no definition that exists which separates the two, the easiest way to distinguish proximity marketing from mobile marketing is simply the concept of localized content. Potential advertising audiences must enter a “localized” area such as a grocery store or a shopping center in order to receive the advertisement with proximity marketing, while mobile marketing doesn’t require such an attribute.

Education of marketers in the U.S is one prohibiting factor in my mind, with almost no news coming out regarding the technology, even though numerous companies exist on U.S soil that provide proximity marketing solutions.  Marketers are already bombarded with so-called new-age marketing channels, and adding one more to the mix will confuse the masses even more than they already are.  Still, proximity marketing offers something even mobile marketing in large part can’t provide; being extremely inexpensive and very easy to integrate.

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We here at MMW strive to answer any questions you may have or give guidance in pertinent segments of mobile technology, advertising and marketing to all who request it, but every now and then we receive emails from readers that are just too good not to share.  As such, I’d like to share a quick email we received recently with a simple plea for help from someone struggling with advanced mobile technology:  (anonymous) writes…

Dear MMW – I’ve been trying to recieve collect calls from my boyfriend in jail.. and it doesn’t go threw can u plz help me.. thanks a lot!

While we’re solid in our belief that we know the mobile industry inside and out, collect calling from jail cells seems to fall just outside our area of expertise.  While we appreciate this individual reaching out in her time of need, I can safely say for once that I simply don’t know the answer….

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While we all understand the benefits of mobile marketing on a large-scale, why then does the concept of hyperlocal mobile marketing seem to always get lost in the mix?

I live in a small town, filled with small businesses and business-owners locked in to legacy ideals when it comes to marketing.  The thought of targeting customers via mobile devices is a concept that many scratch their heads about when planning their marketing strategy, and usually go back to old-time techniques when finally executing that strategy.

For those located outside the tech-savvy regions of the US, where mobile marketing is deemed the “frontier of marketing innovation,” the concept is still largely overlooked by those who can benefit the most from it – small businesses.  While there’s startups trying to bring the new-age ideals of mobile marketing to a hyperlocal level, it remains shrouded in obscurity for most SMB owners.

In large part, I think it all comes down to simplicity.  Cutting through the big words, various platforms and OSs, techniques and methods associated with mobile marketing, and instead focusing on the bottom line of using method X to achieve more sales/leads/etc should be emphasized on a hyperlocal level.  If SMBs get confused by the concepts, they’ll return to their so-called tried-and-true marketing methods, which may be easy to understand and implement, but not nearly as effective as a simple mobile strategy would have been.

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I’ve long said that carriers continually miss the boat in terms of leveraging their position to capitalize on mobile marketing and advertising, and a new survey reinforces my stance even further.

CSS Insight, in its most recent survey, indicates that most consumers ignore the services offered by wireless carriers in favor of more familiar names on the Web. While the research suggests ways for network operators and phone-makers to maximize the uptake of the mobile Web, results indicate that many of these opportunities are being overlooked (again).

Most carrier-based “portals” and services such as Nokia’s Ovi are losing out to familiar Web brands like Facebook, Amazon and Twitter, who carry much more name recognition and worldwide appeal than that of a single carrier.  Still, carriers should have recognized the potential the mobile Web was inevitably going to provide and acted before it was too late.

Granted, the aforementioned survey was conducted in Europe, which differs slightly in terms of mobile tech and uptake than the US, but the sentiment remains the same- carriers have, again, failed to recognize an opportunity for immense revenue and user-interaction that would have kept them in front of their subscribers instead of pushing them away to third-party mobile Web content providers.

Martin Garner, Director of Mobile Internet at CCS Insight and one of the report’s authors, said: “Our survey reveals the true picture of mobile Internet usage among young consumers in Europe’s top five markets.  It shows that as smartphones become more affordable, people are using them to access the sites they know and love on their PCs.  Mobile network operators and handset manufacturers are losing the battle to define the mobile Internet experience, despite the huge sums they’re pouring into sites that compete with the familiar Web names.”

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One of the biggest complaints coming from those involved in mobile marketing and advertising — and those sitting on the sidelines — is the lack of tools to properly measure the effectiveness of mobile ads.  It’s one of the largest inhibitors for brands leery of the concept, and a primary roadblock that has to be overcome…but how?

In yet another study, it was found that more than half of executives would inject more money into mobile marketing if there was a better way of measuring its effectiveness – 58% to be exact, who simply want greater accountability in the segment.  ”As our research shows, there is a clear appetite for an industry-wide measurement platform,” said O2 Media Managing Director Sean Gregory.  ”The launch of Mobile Media Metrics will more than meet this need.”  While an industry-wide measurement platform would be ideal, it’s simply not viable in the current state of mobile marketing.

The problem is fragmentation of information.  Running a mobile campaign relies on multiple platforms, varying technologies and fragmented metrics from various sources, leaving many holes in its path.  You’re most likely faced with overlapping reports from ad-networks and agencies, duplication of conversion tracking to your site/mobile app and the daunting task of bringing everything together into something that’s actually usable.

While there’s no clear cut answer, and standardization and centralization of mobile metrics is a pipe dream at best, we’re left at the mercy of existing analytics providers and ad-networks to come up with an industry-wide solution.  The only answer in my opinion is for every ad-network and metrics-provider to liberate the data they accrue, and make it available via APIs.  Developers could devise a solution or create a mashup of sorts to centralize and make sense of all the fragmented information that plagues mobile marketers and advertisers.

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I feel inclined to comment on the notion of Social Search and it’s purposed take-over of how people search on mobile devices.  While the concept has extreme potential, it won’t be realized until several fundamental aspects are addressed- aspects that will take time to evolve and make themselves known.

Aardvark recently published a comprehensive research paper entitled “Anatomy of a Large-Scale Social Search Engine,” whereby it delves into the conceptual aspects of social search and how it fundamentally differs from traditional search.  The research mirrors that of Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin’s “Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Search Engine,” that outlines the theory of Google PageRank and the ideas that have made Google the dominate search engine it is today.

Aardvark’s research describes traditional Web search as a “library” approach, whereby results and answers are found in existing Online content.  Social search from the likes of Aardvark, and the droves of other startups eeking their way into the marketplace for that matter, describe themselves as having a “village” approach- whereby answers arise in conversation with the people in your social network.

I agree with the self-proclaimed benefits of social search through the eyes of Aardvark, which are that users can ask questions in a natural language — without having to speak in keywords — that content is generated “on-demand” tapping real people who can give more informed results, and that the surrounding ecosystem is fueled by the so-called “goodwill of its users,” but therein lies the problem.

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Ok, I will admit I have never worked for a carrier and I don’t know their future plans for mobile commerce, but I do know one thing:  carriers love money and they do a good job at taking way too much of it. Yes, premium SMS is a multi-billion dollar industry and it’s made a lot of carriers good money, but could it have been even bigger? Premium never really took off for SMBs and, let’s face it, there are millions more smaller businesses than bigger ones. You had to be a big player like Disney or Universal to really make money with content like ringtones and wallpaper. The carriers typically take 50% of the revenue generated from premium content; as a result, it didn’t allow many people to jump in the game. Overall , I don’t think we have seen the mass adoption that premium could have made if it was less expensive to get in. Of course, the premium SMS scandals that took place didn’t help either. There were a number of unscrupulous companies that would get consumers locked into premium monthly subscriptions with no way out.  As a result, there were quite a few lawsuits and consumer confidence was damaged.

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