Mobile remains one of the most anticipated, least adopted interactive channels in the mix.  Sure, plenty of cool mobile programs exist…after all there’s an app for everything nowadays. Unfortunately complexity around metrics, marketer, content and carrier relationships, plus limited consumer mobile data use continues to stifle mobile marketing adoption today. According to Forrester’s US Interactive Marketing Forecast, 2009 to 2014 a 27% CAGR is expected for mobile marketing over the next five years.

Consider this astonishing fact.  More than 50% of consumers with mobile phones sent or received text messages and 21% sent or received emails via a mobile device in 2008, compared with 46% and 15% who did the same in 2007. Reliance on mobile phones will only continue to increase as mobile devices improve, applications are more plentiful, and influential mobile users lead others to experiment.

Need an app?  There’s probably one available.  Everyone is jumping on the mobile application bandwagon. iPhone reports more than 305,000 available apps ranging from iFart – an electronic whoopee cushion – to mobile bill pay apps sponsored by many large banks. But there is no limit to the volume of appreciation consumers will download.  Therefore is behooves marketers to invest in building a few targeted applications instead of slapping together a hodgepodge of cheap applications.

As mobile continues to mature as a marketing medium, its usefulness to marketers will also improve. New mobile capabilities like mobile search from Google, Bing, and Yahoo will provide additional familiar interfaces. Finally advances in RFID and in –store technologies will tie mobile communications to end sales, eventually making mobile devices in points of sale.