40% of marketers are reaching out to mobile consumers

Marketers are increasingly eager to reach consumers via their mobile devices, a new report from consultancy Forrester Research Inc. finds.

More than 40% of 252 U.S. interactive marketing professionals in a recent poll by Forrester report using some form of mobile marketing. And an additional 35% plan to incorporate mobile into their marketing plans over the next year.

Mobile marketing budgets, the research finds, also will climb, although mobile will still account for a small portion of total marketing spend. Forrester estimates that nearly 40% of active mobile marketers are still allocating only test budgets for mobile.

Nearly 53% of marketers say they will increase their mobile budgets in 2011, and only 4% are planning on decreasing them.  However, nearly 59% of marketers say they will spend less than $1 million on mobile this year. 23% plan to spend more than $1 million and the rest don’t know what they will spend, Forrester finds.

Marketers are willing to test the waters with different forms of mobile marketing, Forrester also finds. For example, 31% of marketers have optimized their e-mail campaigns for mobile, and around 29% have experimented with text messaging or multimedia messaging to reach consumers. Bidding on mobile display ads came in last among the mobile marketing categories in the survey at 12%.  

Forrester stresses that the time is fast approaching to stop experimenting and move forward with a firm mobile strategy. “Experimentation is always a good way to learn new technologies and channels,” the report notes. “However, the pace of consumer adoption is so quick in mobile, and the potential for mobile to change the way businesses operates is so clear, that marketers cannot afford to test for another year.”