MMF Panel: Mobile marketing budgets growing at 26%

By Jordan Crook, Mobile Marketer

NEW YORK -- Despite the overall decline in marketing budgets nationwide, companies are allocating their marketing dollars to mobile.

This was the topic of conversation at the Mobile Marketing Association's Mobile Marketing Forum in the Grand Hyatt Hotel where Peter Johnson, vice president of market intelligence and strategy, MMA, led a panel discussion titled "Marketing Industry Research: 2009." "Our main purpose is to create a model of who we are as an industry so when we make decisions we can tell clients, ‘if you do this or that, I know what will make a difference for you and consumers," Mr. Johnson said.

"The ability to understand ourselves, predict and version what happens is critical to the association," he said. The discussion was meant to review statistics on 2009's mobile marketing and Mr. Johnson opened with some of the key findings. When polled in the MMA's 2009 mobile marketing survey, respondents claim that they dedicate an average of 1.8 percent of marketing budgets to mobile marketing.

While marketing budgets are down 70 percent in the last year, the average mobile marketing budget is growing at a rate of 26 percent every year. The survey also found that advertisers are spending approximately $1.7 billion on mobile marketing in 2009. That number is set to increase by over 100 percent by 2010 as the MMA estimates advertiser mobile spending to reach $2.16 billion by then.

Mr. Johnson noted that two of every three (69 percent) respondents said they would consider mobile marketing over more traditional mediums. It is commonly heard at mobile marketing conferences that "this is the year of mobile." Yet, with these statistics, marketers haven't even touched the surface of potential in this channel. Half of the respondents from the 2009 survey said they ran at least one campaign involving mobile in the last year.

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