Mobile Marketing Gaining Succes

181 million people in the U.S. have mobile phones. How do you reach them? It ain’t easy. Not yet. While a pair of interesting case studies were presented by Joe Barone (the Tazorac acne medication) and Tom Burgess (a mobile campaign for the television program Veronica Mars), the bottom line of this session moderated by Laura Marriott of the Mobile Marketing Association is that it’s still pretty much the wild, wild west out there.

Some stats provided by Will Hodgman tell the tale: While we hear a lot about ringtones, only 8.6 percent of users have ever downloaded a ringtone to their phone. Just 10.9 percent of phone owners have retrieved news or information with their phone. And the killer app of text messaging is used by less than a third—30.8% to be precise—of that 181 million.

Of course, phones are getting more sophisticated all the time, phone owners are continuing to learn how to use all these new features, and someday we’ll reach a point where marketing on cell phones is as relatively turnkey as marketing on the web.

Right now, though, it’s like Web marketing in 1995 all over again with the added complication that instead of just advertisers and content providers, you have to be concerned about a third component in the mix: the wireless carriers.