ARCHIVES: This is legacy content from before Marketing Dive acquired Mobile Marketer in early 2017. Some information, such as publication dates, may not have migrated over. Check out the new Marketing Dive site for the latest marketing news.

How has mobile been successful in dodging budgetary cuts?

By Michael Foschetti

Pause for a moment, and let's all take a collective deep breath. We, both as marketers and contributors to Corporate America, have survived the first five months of 2009!

True, major companies across the nation are in undeniable financial trouble, with major companies going bankrupt including the recent announcement regarding General Motors' bankruptcy.

We are also experiencing the effects of industry leaders implementing substantial budget cuts and contributing to off-the-charts unemployment numbers.

The U.S. economy is waist-deep in the worst recession I will ever experience in my life. And yet mobile marketing has managed to maintain its foothold in the marketplace -- and grow. I don't think I am alone in feeling amazed by this fact.

So how has mobile been so successful at dodging marketers' relentless budgetary constraints?

The truth is there is no better time to use mobile than now.

When stretching ad dollars, marketers are turning to inexpensive, micro-targeted media with diverse capabilities that they can count on to produce positive ROI. Mobile does this, and also provides brands with a way to innovatively captivate consumers' attention and rise above cluttered traditional media.

One of our Mobisix clients described 2009 as a "housekeeping" year, allowing its corporate team an opportunity to catch up with new technologies, emerging media and the changing marketplace.

This brand, like many others, has designed its 2009 marketing plan conservatively but is actively testing new tactics on a small scale -- with the goal that when the economy turns around, its team will be ready to execute best practices on a larger scale and springboard past their competition.

On the other side of the coin, there are certainly marketers that view mobile as a quantum leap of faith -- and are too scared to test the waters.

Their arguments stem from a plethora of historical dot-com failures, and they view an economic recession as horrible timing for test-and-learn campaigns or "experimental" programs.

Remarkably, mobile is still very much an unknown in many marketers' minds, and until they see publicly documented success stories pile up for their exact industries, this hurdle will remain.

These conservative-minded companies can sometimes be blinded by the medium's mystery, and therefore may not recognize its unique capabilities to help support brands through tough economic times.

This is a dangerous way to view mobile, and brands that refuse to veer from traditional media will suffer in the long-term as competitors capitalize on mobile's growing impact.

Look at the State of Nevada, for example: a rep from the Tourism Department's marketing staff stated, "in terms of marketing, there's no better bang-for-your-buck than with mobile."

Due to extreme marketing budget cuts, Nevada is actively taking advantage of mobile marketing, declaring the medium as its "new center point."

Nevada has dramatically reduced its television ad spend to almost nothing, which previously was its largest-scale promotional tactic.

Instead, Nevada marketers plan to integrate mobile as part of an effort to activate cheaper media avenues, including low-cost social networking sites -- YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter top their list -- and existing print and out-of-home materials.

The entertainment industry is another major player that is profitably using mobile to make a splash in this recession.

The pop group "New Kids on the Block" kicked off their late 2008 "The Block" tour with in-venue marketing to launch their mobile fan club. The band collected approximately 1,000 new members per concert, and between September and November, the mobile fan club reached 30,000 members.

With this rapidly compiled and enormous mobile opt-in database at the band's fingertips, the group now uses this personalized reach to send updates, inform fans of schedule changes, sell tickets and send notification of in-venue offers.

Economic conditions aside, there really is no better way for a brand to reach a consumer than to ping a personally relevant, opt-in ad message straight into his pocket.

This recession only serves as a motivator for marketers with continually dwindling budgets that are looking to allocate their limited funds intelligently, efficiently and profitably.

Michael Foschetti is managing director of Mobisix, a mobile marketing agency in Charlotte, NC. Reach him at .