Steve Madden has taken second place in the 2010 Mobile Marketer of the Year awards due to its all-round excellence in mobile marketing, offering an experience that is worthy of emulation.

Based on the nominations received from readers and submissions from this publication's editorial team, Mobile Marketer is convinced that Steve Madden serves as a role model for marketers for its outstanding use of mobile as a marketing medium. 

?What marks Steve Madden?s mobile efforts from its competitors? pushes is the attention to customer ease across all digital media ? online and mobile meld seamlessly to create a shopping experience that is friendly and a credit to the footwear brand,? said Mickey Alam Khan, editor in chief of Mobile Marketer and Mobile Commerce Daily, New York.

?Of course, the man behind the machine is Andrew Koven, whose leadership and indefatigable attitude propelled Steve Madden to be held as one of the best examples of mobile at work,? he said. ?Andrew has always put Steve Madden?s best foot forward.?

Branding, customer acquisition and retention
Steve Madden has consistently made effective use of mobile marketing for branding, customer acquisition and retention.

For example, Steve Madden is currently testing the effectiveness of MMS as a discovery-and-purchase mechanism, sending timely and relevant news, sales promotions and exclusive content to opted-in consumers on their mobile phones.

Consumers can text various keywords (i.e. JOINSTEVE to 91919) and in return get back relevant text, picture and video messages on their mobile devices.

Consumers are added to Steve Madden?s database for future marketing.

Via its efforts, Steve Madden has been able to build a qualified database of respondents to mobile campaigns.

This opt-in list is gold, since the churn rate with mobile phone numbers is minimal compared with email or postal addresses.

?Steve Madden is a fashion-forward lifestyle brand with a cool, trend-setting customer base,? Mr. Koven said. ?Our customers like to be engaged and communicate, which is what makes the mobile experience particularly exciting ? we?re experimenting with lifestyle and product content including images, music and video.

?Our campaign ideas are setting the stage and hopefully will be of value to other marketers looking to succeed in mobile, reinforcing Steve Madden?s brand position as innovators and leaders,? he said. ?Segmentation will be built around consumer?s preferences in a macro sense, and location in a micro one.

?Our mobile marketing objectives are rooted in relevancy ? we?re going to be a bit slower and more deliberate with our approach to this.?

MMS and SMS are becoming the technologies of choice for major brands that are seeking effective ways to connect with their consumers on mobile in a timely, relevant, personalized and unobtrusive way.

By leveraging MMS and SMS, brands can reach nearly 95 percent of mobile phone subscribers on both smartphones and non-smartphones alike.

Mobile is part of multichannel mix
While standalone mobile marketing efforts are OK, Steve Madden incorporates mobile into a multichannel plan.

Mobile's role in giving legs to social media, print, TV, radio, direct mail, catalogs, insert media and the Internet is what makes it a standout medium.

Steve Madden?s move to build the Facebook "Like" feature into its mobile commerce-enabled site increased the site?s traffic by 30 percent in just 24 hours.

Basically, consumers who shop Steve Madden?s mobile site can choose to Like a product. The Like action is then posted to the user?s Facebook Wall, for all friends to see.

This promotional push increased Steve Madden?s mobile site traffic by 30 percent in the first 24 hours after launch, Mr. Koven said.  

?We may be the first to build Facebook Like into our mobile site,? Mr. Koven said. ?We built this specifically into our mobile presence to make our mobile site more like a social platform that lets people share what they like.?

The Like functionality on the Steve Madden mobile site has helped the brand increase its number of loyal followers on Facebook by several hundred in just 24 hours.

Seeing good results
The brand has seen a consistent trend demonstrating the power of mobile.

In April, 4.4 percent of Steve Madden?s total online traffic was driven via mobile. In May it jumped up to 7.9 percent and in June it was 8.6 percent. In July it was 9.5 percent and in October 10.5 percent.

Looking at its mobile analytics from April 19 to Oct. 25, Steve Madden has recorded 880,000 visits to its mobile site.

The average time spent on its mobile site is 6 minutes and 53 seconds, while the total time spent on its site over that six-month period is 6.25 million minutes.

Steve Madden sold 7,856 products in that time-frame via mobile, generating $520,866 revenue, with an average order price of $83.70.

While the conversion rate was just 0.71 percent, it is still early days, and Steve Madden expects that number to increase steadily, with a spike during the upcoming holiday season.

Steve Madden?s mobile marketing creative is consistently outstanding, with the ads and imagery on the brand?s mobile site conveying the brand attributes.

One of the more innovative players in the mobile commerce space, the New York-based company is intent on taking mobile essentially beyond ecommerce. It sees huge opportunities in the space and is ramping up its mobile initiatives accordingly.

The brand engages consumers via SMS, MMS, click-to-call, a WAP site, applications and even Bluetooth.

Additionally, Steve Madden uses SMS offers and coupons, mobile search ads, mobile Web display ads and in-application display ads that consistently perform well.

There is no doubt that Steve Madden?s mobile endeavors have shaped the mobile marketing industry this year, serving as a role model to agencies and service providers.

?We want to lead in mobile,? Mr. Koven said. ?We recognize that this device is uniquely targeted, which gives us an incredible opportunity not just to build our brand, but [to also] utilize mobile to facilitate transactions of our brand.

?Ultimately, we want to provide consumers with the information they need ? the information that is appropriate for the type of purchase that they make,? he said

How does Steve Madden feel about recieving this honor?

Here is what Mr. Koven said:

Mobile is critically important to Steve Madden's overall marketing strategy.

As we look towards the future of multichannel retail and customer engagement, the ability to connect to and with consumers any time, any where, online and in-store is what will differentiate us as a forward thinking market leader in touch with our audience.

Mobile is not tactical, it's a strategic bridge which connects our brand to our customers and our customers to all of our sales and marketing channels and modes of messaging and communications.

Direct marketing and purchase behavior as we know it is fundamentally changing - we recognize that what mail order catalogs represented before direct response 800 numbers became all the rage, which was proceeded by the internet and then email - is now evolving into mobile marketing and mcommerce.

Simply put, we set out to demystify mobile commerce and mobile marketing for the industry of brands, retailers and brand marketers - all of Steve Madden's mobile efforts, proactive sharing of the strategies and results have been done so in an effort to help the industry understand, adapt, adopt and improve our respective business' performance and most importantly - improve customer experience.

This would be the greatest honor of my professional career.

Final Take
Giselle Tsirulnik is senior editor on Mobile Marketer, New York