Las Vegas - Some of the biggest businesses in the world have embraced mobile marketing to complement traditional forms of advertising and have incorporated it into their brand strategies.

In the ?Mobile Marketing for 2010 ? Successful Brand Strategies? panel at International CTIA Wireless 2010 discussed best practices for mobile marketing for brands. The panel was moderated by Konny Zsigo, president of Wireless Developer Agency.

?With mobile, there?s a lot of directions you can go,? said Bryan Seti, vice president of WaterCraft Group at Yamaha Motor Corp. ?In our business, most of it is done in a four month window.

?There?s an immediacy that we have to get our messages out,? he said. ?We?re going to reach out and send messages out to consumers.?

?The beauty of the phone is that you can reach consumers at any time and any place.?

According to Jon Vlassopulos, CEO of Moderati, mobile makes the Internet better and it is an exciting time for companies and publishers.

Mr. Vlassopulos advises small businesses to go mobile and build their brands. They should, however, do their homework before getting into it.

User experience
A user experience, such as a touch screen phone is important, as well as social networks such as Facebook or Twitter and SMS.

?It?s a great time to get a lot of good thinking and strategic advice and case studies for free,? Mr. Vlassopulos said. ?There are people that can help you with some thinking.

?So take advantage of all the great companies and the thinking,? he said.

Tim Cotney, CEO of air2Web, said that there are a lot of things with mobile that follow the evolution of the Web. There is less real estate on the screen and it is less easy to navigate.

Privacy and personalization are some of the key factors that businesses should look into to engage a consumer.

According to air2Web there are 96.8 consumers who are on a text message plan of some type and the company said that SMS is going to be around for a while.

?Just approach whatever you?re doing with the attitude that this is going to be bigger than what your company is doing with the Web,? Mr. Cotney said. ?Do it right. Get advice.

?There are people out there that you can talk to,? he said. ?Get people, do the research on the partners, get off to a good start and avoid the cheap experiment, because you?ll never recover from it.?

Imc2, a brand engagement agency, finds that the problem is with the CMO?s marketing organizations, who tend to view mobile as an emerging channel that is not very funded right now.

Ian Wolfman, Imc2 partner and CMO, said that CMOs have to pay attention now because mobile marketing will transform their business and integrate it.

Mobile integration
Integration adds a new brand touch point and can fit into different parts of a marketing environment.

?I think that these mobile initiatives are being treated as an emerging channel, I don?t think it?s a new channel at all,? Mr. Wolfman said. ?It?s a catalyst, a new marketing. It requires different levels of attention.

?If it?s delegated down to marketing manager, they?re pushed on ROY, which is really not the point,? he said.

While working on a marketing strategy, businesses need to look over the touch points of its campaigns. They would need to see if they want to do a click-to-call campaign, create a mobile Web page, SMS or if they want their mobile site to be mobile banner based.

?Take your time but act really quickly,? Mr. Seti said. ?It?s a great medium. Figure out what you want to do, put the thought in there ? there are so many opportunity out there.

?If you don?t get on board now, mobile is going to be moving so fast you won?t find yourself behind the eight ball,? he said. ?It?s tough to get educated if you?re a brand. It?s a puppy of an industry.

?You have to navigate your way and commit to it. It can change and evolve every single day.?