By Matt Goddard

Mobile technology is now ubiquitous. With more than 33 million iPhones sold and more than 140,000 applications available in the Apple App Store and millions of Android-based phones and nearly 20,000 Android applications, devices and application stores such as these have transformed consumer awareness of advanced mobile features.

Mobile platforms, and the applications they run, constitute a channel for brand-consumer interaction that cannot be ignored. Brands that ignore this interaction risk extinction, and therefore must seize every available opportunity to enter the mobile applications marketplace ? or must they?
 
Almost any technology that includes a means to engage the user can be thought of as an application. This includes everything from spreadsheet applications to ?Are you smarter than your friends?? quizzes.

There?s an app for that
To determine whether or not the creation of a mobile application is right for your brand, which type of application makes the most sense, and how to design a successful one, marketers need to consider a couple of key factors.

First, does your brand have highly sought-after, proprietary content and can you extend your brand?s value proposition to the mobile environment? Next, how useful is your brand?s proposed application?

By plotting the usefulness of a potential application against your brand?s content and value proposition, we find that almost every type of application falls into one of four buckets: content-based, entertainment-based, branded utility and straight utility.

By seeing which of these four categories an application falls into, marketers can better gauge the likely success of their application.

A mobile application based on highly sought-after, proprietary content presents companies with the opportunity to offer customers something that they simply could not get before in a mobile environment.

Several major sports brands, for example, now offer content-based applications that provide live audio broadcasts of games, as well as fast, accurate statistics, news and detailed team and player information, keeping fans in the action no matter where they are.

What?s the brand value proposition?
A mobile application is most effective when it is an extension of an existing brand value proposition.

Consider mobile banking applications. These are branded utilities that provide a service the user needs while also connecting to the brand. These are the most powerful types of mobile applications because they engage through function and usefulness while connecting with the essential value of the brand?s products or services.

Branded utilities are considered low-hanging fruit as they leverage consumers? already-existing interest in the value offered by the brand?s products or services.

In the absence of either highly-sought after, proprietary content, or the ability to extend your value proposition, creation of a successful mobile application can be a struggle ? but not impossible. Enter the entertainment-based application.

Recently, a well-known brewer launched an application resembling a pint of beer that poured out when the mobile device was tilted. While it was good for a few laughs and may have made a few mouths water, this application provided no real extended worth or usefulness to the user.

Entertainment-based applications such as this can effectively support short-term campaigns or events, but often become obsolete or forgotten when the campaign ends.

With a saturated marketplace, particularly if you do not have an established entertainment or gaming brand, an entertainment application is a tough challenge.

Function before form
The last type of application is a straight utility which serves as a tool for daily life. Currency converters, cocktail directories, or similar straight utilities are handy for the user, but they are usually devoid of entertainment and often have no brand connection.

Software companies tend to dominate the straight utility space, making competition by brands very difficult. Brands should keep in mind, too, that successful straight utilities need to be ready for long-term viability including upgrades and releases of new versions.

While straight utilities serve important purposes, they often fail to increase engagement and connection with and understanding of your customers.

If the application you are considering is neither useful, nor connected to your brand and value proposition, you should not waste time or money creating it.

Mobile applications can offer brands tremendous value in building customer interaction, brand loyalty and general product or service awareness. But their true advantages and helpfulness to brands are often distorted by their popularity and sexiness.

Carefully examine your brand?s value proposition content and your potential application?s functional merit before dialing into the mobile application realm.

Matt Goddard is Baltimore, MD-based CEO of R2integrated, an Internet marketing technology company. Reach him at .