• Describe the incentive
• Eliminate potential user-error obstacles
• Optimize for mobile user experience
• Think through a compelling user flow
• Find a personality

Head on over to MarketingProfs to read the post and let us know what you think.

And in case you need more information on creating calls to action, have a look at our recent webinar or our online gallery, Art of the CTA.

1. Let’s start with the smartphone penetration dent; Nielsen says March 2012 puts the U.S. above 50 percent.
2. So what’s that mean for the OS mix? Well, Android is at 49, iOS at 32 and RIM’s measures 11.6.
3. As for the ethnicity contrast/compare, APAC is at 67, Hispanics 57, Blacks 54 and whites a 45% share.
4. So guess who’s tops when it comes to browser and apps combined – it’s Google Sites, with Facebook and Yahoo next in line.
5. Focusing specifically on apps with gaming and social ends, you’re probably not surprised to see Facebook and Zynga’s Words with Friends.
6. Pew Internet has an opinion too: Real-Time Information Seekers And Problem Solvers – that’s me and you.
7. Specifically, 50% of us coordinate real-time gatherings with our cell, followed by 47% who refuse to let problems gel
8. Finally, for establishing a connection with SMB’s, choose mobile since 91% of those-sized businesses will agree.

Here’s hoping that your reaction looks something like this. Let us know what other stats you have come across (wrapping mandatory, but rapping not) by posting to the comments.

The April top 5 according to buzz:

1. American Airlines direct mail QR code
2. MTA New York City text times
3. Minneapolis St. Paul International Airport bathroom notifier
4. Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport ATM and guest services
5. John Deere online mobile and email sign up form

In addition, wanted to do something different than previous months. The ArtOfTheCTA site, now boasting close to 300 calls to action is jam packed with tons of content, from funny to compelling, weird and awesome. Thus, I think it’s high time we handed out some superlative awards, especially because high school year books shouldn’t be the only things that benefit from the joy that is superlatives. So, with our committee of one spending numerous hours deliberating, here you have it:

1. Most likely to help those in a (or who need to) pinch
2. Best and perhaps most unlikely friend of the Statue of Liberty
3. Most likely to use a Hollywood 3D camera to make things pop out of the screen
4. Most heartwarming
5. Most likely to marry a lawyer
6. Most flexible left ankle joint
7. Most likely to invent technology time travel
8. Class clown
9. Most suspicious of trucks
10. Most likely to win a beauty pageant

Well, that’s a wrap for April. We’d love to hear your superlatives if you have got some. We welcome any and all submissions.

Have you ever wondered how to create the perfect SMS marketing call to action? Our presentation on How To Make an Excellent SMS Call To Action covers pretty much everything you need to know – from compliance, to incentives, design and metadata collection for ROI.

You can view the recorded webinar on the Waterfall Vimeo archive or download the webinar slides from Slideshare.

Stay tuned for two more webinars from Waterfall Mobile in the coming weeks. Our own Kane Russell will be presenting May 16 along with Angel on 5 Strategies For Effectively Integrating SMS, IVR and Social, and Matt Silk will be presenting May 17 along with Bronto on Integrating SMS Into Your Cross-Channel Messaging Strategy. Please join us if you can.

To give people some context, Zuckerberg and his CFOs did not buy Instagram the photo-sharing app for $1 billion. They bought Instagram the mobile DNA for $1 billion.

Wait, what? The Instagr.am website clearly states that Instagram “is a fast, beautiful and fun way to share photos with friends and family. Snap a picture, choose a filter to transform its look and feel, then post to Instagram. Share to Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr too – it’s as easy as pie. It’s photo sharing, reinvented.” There’s certainly no mention of mobile or DNA.

OK, ok – it’s true that Instagram is a mobile app, so that takes care of the mobile part. And a little bit more thought reveals that Instagram uses hash tags to inform location and users. And that’s the DNA part. Instagram gives Facebook a huge piece of mobile data (i.e. the who/what/when/where/why behind photo sharing) that Facebook can then monetize.

And that’s the point of mobile DNA. Getting data around and about mobile was worth $1 billion for Facebook. And that’s the point of this blog post: all companies need to find a way to create their own mobile DNA that can add $1 billion to their own market capitalization.  

According to comScore, smartphone penetration reached 42% by the start 2012, with smartphone acquisition outpacing feature phone acquisition as early as July 2011. January 2011 to January 2012 year-over-year growth of mobile activities was staggering – with increases of 34% for personal email, 42.9% for social networking, 38.3% for Search, 49.2% for news, 27.4% for instant messaging and 44.8% for entertainment news (to name a few).  Consumers are using their mobile devices now for everything, and growth momentum just continues to pick up steam.

The key to mobile DNA is remembering that it’s not the activities themselves that are valuable. Sure it’s great to know when people are accessing a company website via mobile. But it’s way cooler to know who those people are, why they are there, what their interests are and what their purchasing influences are at that point in time. It’s this second piece that constitutes mobile DNA. And I’m guessing it’s not hard to see why such a thing would be so valuable. You have a device that’s

• Traveling with people at all times (Morgan Stanley found that 91% of people have their phones within arms reach 24/7)
• Used for pretty much everything (social, news, games, maps, search)
• Throughout their entire day (see the aforementioned Morgan Stanley finding)

For those that like analogies, companies should derive mobile DNA value not from adding more and more dots on a map. It’s about connecting those dots in a meaningful way (i.e. through cross-channel, connected data). The connection of these dots can help companies’s profitability in a number of ways, from improving targeting for consumer communication to enhancing customer service capacity and product innovation.

Furthermore, mobile DNA hedges against social network industry and firm-specific risk. Think about it – social networks like Twitter and Facebook aren’t valuable to companies because of their communication possibilities. They’re valuable because of the data they have on consumers and how that information can be used to better profit from consumer activity.

And that’s exactly why companies don’t have any control over this data. Ultimately, every status update or share is not on a company’s home turf. It’s on foreign territory, meaning that when it comes down to it, companies are at the mercy and whims of the social networking giants (e.g. think about all those companies who were founded on Facebook apps – how do they feel about the Timeline roll out?).

So there you have it – the answer to our blog post’s title. Mobile DNA is connecting the mobile data dots to become more profitable and hedge risk in the ever-changing social media landscape (don’t forget that MySpace ruled the world not too long ago and companies like Tumblr and Pinterest didn’t even exist yesterday). To start creating mobile DNA, build a mobile opt-in list, map email subscribers and social media account names to those mobile numbers and analyze the underlying data. Begin creating metrics around the interplay between those various data points using the input advantages (location, time, device, channel etc.) presented by mobile.

Best of all, that data/DNA is all yours to benefit from going forward. Enjoy.

Waterfall Co-Authors White Paper on Mobile Messaging with the MMA

For those looking for insight into the North American mobile messaging market, have a look at a white paper we co-authored with the Mobile Marketing Association entitled, “Current State of Messaging in North America – March 2012.” It’s available for download here.

The paper analyzes SMS, MMS, IVR, Push Notifications, Abbreviated Dial Codes, Free to the End User Messaging and concludes with five predictions about the future of mobile messaging. In our opinion, the most important takeaway is that marketers need to focus on delivering personally engaging and relevant content, as mobile users demand this type of interaction.

Hubspot’s “When SMS Text Messaging Actually Makes Sense For Marketers”

Great article posted to the Hubspot blog this week, this from Corey Eridon about how marketers can best take advantage of SMS marketing. Eridon includes another shout out to Waterfall’s Cove campaign and dissects SMS marketing best practices quite succinctly. Our favorite passage from the article is a list of questions that SMS marketers should ask themselves before launching a campaign. They are:

• Does this campaign rely on two-way communications? (i.e. mobile is interactive)
• Are those communications time-sensitive? (i.e. mobile is immediate)
• Is mobile communication the best way of executing this campaign, or is email more appropriate? (i.e. mobile is 1-to-1, email to general audience)
• Do I have enough content to keep those who have opted in to my mobile campaign interested? (i.e. is your content relevant (see takeaway above))

For what it’s worth Corey, we certainly agree.

Mobile Marketing Association Webinar Includes Latest comScore Stats

The MMA recently did a webinar in conjunction with comScore titled “The Rise of Mobile Prominence.” The session provided some great insight about the current state of mobile and how things are looking going forward. Among the stats we thought particularly noteworthy:

• Current smartphone penetration stands at 41.8% (this is different from other figures released, but I would say we’re still not at 50% yet).
• 20 million smartphone owners scanned at least one QR code in December 2011, which is up 59% since July 2011. Average monthly increase in total number of QR code users since July is about 1.5MM.
• 48% of December 2011 QR code scans were from newsprint, 42% from product packaging, 26% from a website/PC and 25% from a poster.
• 57% of QR codes are scanned at home
• 25% of US smartphone owners accessed online retail sites in December 2011 (+116% since December 2010).

Mobile Marketer Releases Top 10 SMS Campaigns of Q1

A blog focused on mobile marketing, Mobile Marketer, recently released their top ten SMS campaigns of Q1 2012. Among the winners was the Reese’s to 44144 campaign. We encourage you to check out the rest of the top ten to see if you texted in to any of the winning campaigns.

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There you have it. Please let us know if you have seen other stats or best practices related to mobile by posting to the comments.

Acceptance for contestant entries started April 16 at 12PM PDT and will last until April 30 at 12PM PDT. Once accepted, applicants receive an e-mail confirmation, and they then have exactly one week to gather votes. The primary voting mechanism is text messaging, as each contestant receives a unique code that people can text to the short code 73822 (U.S.) or 99099 (Canada) and register up to one unique vote per day. Those who choose not to text can also vote online.

You can view a gallery of all the contestant profiles with photos, quotations and unique voting codes on the peta2 website. Winners receive the crown of peta2′s Cutest Vegetarian Alive 2012, a feature on the peta2.com website, a professional photo shoot and the opportunity to appear in a peta2 ad. Full contest details are available here.

A special shout out to last year’s winners, Madeline from St. Louis, MO and Corey from Martinsburg, VA. You can see their winning photos below.

We wish the best of luck to all the 2012 contestants. Be sure to register your vote today!

To give you some context, the only blip on Google’s stellar financial resume is that aggregate cost-per-click growth was down 12% and 6% quarter-over-quarter. What that means is that Google is making less money off of their desktop internet search business. As to where this hole is being filled, Google’s SVP and CFO Patrick Pichette comments:

Many in the financial community have tried to isolate or often I hear pick one of these among these factors as the primary driver for CPC or click trends. Some even say it’s about — all about mobile. 

I like Teare’s translation of this statement. In his words:

As Android, iPhone and other mobile platforms grow we are moving away from the page based Internet. The new Internet is app centric and often message-centric. The number of users engaged in this app-centric and message-centric Internet is both huge and their use is growing.

 i.e., people are getting more information from their mobile/tablet device as opposed to their desktop computer. And this switch is having a material effect on Google’s business. Rather than desktop search, many companies are finding more opportunities through mobile advertising and messaging. So how is Google responding? Let’s ask Larry Page, Google CEO:

I think the mobile CPCs — I mean, people always spend their most effort on the major — whatever the major source of traffic or revenue is, and those are growing really quickly, albeit currently, obviously, there’s more on desktop. … The fact that you spend most of your money locally, I think that over time that may actually reverse and the CPCs action may get better. But I think we’re very bullish about that. We’re making a lot of investments in that area, in things like Offers and so on and Wallet. And we’re very, very excited about the potential there, and also Click-to-Call and other things that we do.

Makes perfect sense right? At this point, the majority of local websites don’t provide a mind blowing mobile experience and consumers flock to third party sites like Yelp to find objective information. So when it comes to finding out information from a mobile Google search, why not be able to do it right from the search results with a click-to-call?

And that’s where I want to know: would you rather click-to-call? Or click-to-text? Certainly a host of people just want to know things like “Are you guys open?” or “Do you sell harmony remote controls?” And this seems like a great enhancement to a mobile search product. Be interesting to see where this goes.

One more quote I wanted to point out, this from SVP and Chief Business Officer Nikesh Arora:

Yes, I mean, I guess — let me try to just explain to it from the advertiser perspective. So what we’re striving towards is advertisers are interested in ROI. Advertisers actually are not interested in whether they’re on the mobile product, the Display product, the Search product on the Web or the Search product on mobile. So what we are fast converging towards is we’re basically sitting down and understanding ROI targets of our advertisers.

I’ve said something to this effect before (multiple times), but it warrants mentioning again: marketing today is not about optimizing a particular channel vs. another. It’s about providing the best possible experience across channels. Google’s quotation certainly confirms this same line of thinking. Companies shouldn’t be asking themselves “how can I optimize mobile or display or search?” Rather, they should be asking “how can I use mobile, display and search to most effectively monetize my audience?”

Or, if you will: One small step for marketers, one giant leap for CRM.

The Bronto Summit takes place April 10-12 at the Rizzo Conference Center in Chapel Hill, NC. The Summit provides attendees new ideas to connect with buyers and drive revenue through email, mobile and social marketing. Each session is focused on actionable takeaways so that participants can take the next step in innovating their marketing strategy.

Waterfall’s Matt Silk will present a session called “Integrating SMS Into Your Cross-Channel Messaging Strategy.” Matt will be providing detailed insight into the mobile marketing ecosystem, including where the industry is today, where it’s headed, and what marketers can do now to stay ahead of the curve.

Please let us know if you will be in Chapel Hill for the Summit and if you would like to meet up. For those non-attendees, you can to stay abreast of the Bronto Summit happenings by spreading the word using the #BSum12 hashtag on Twitter.

The Forum for Cross-Channel Merchants, new this year, provides attendees with insight into how the best brands create an integrated, 360-degree approach to designing and delivering customer delight.

The forum takes place May 7-9 in Nashville, TN. Waterfall’s Matt Silk will present a round table discussion titled “Creating Interactive Dialogues,” which will focus on how to activate online and offline customer touchpoints so that they work together engaging customers and prospects in interactive mobile dialogues.

In addition to Waterfall, other presenters include representatives from leading companies like Valassis, Rosetta, Living Social and Omaha Steaks, and the sessions cover topics such as “How Mobile Changes Everything” and “Integrating Online and Offline for Targeted Consumer Engagement.” It should be an amazing event (those interested can sign up here)!

Please let us know if you are going to be in Nashville so that we can meet in person. Otherwise stay tuned for updates related to the Forum and other mobile marketing conferences.

For those who were unable to make the event, here are some of the takeaways we grabbed from the conference:

• Focus: This year’s show seemed heavily focused on SEO and Analytics. Every company we talked to seemed to be thirsting after ways to draw consumers to the web and and monetize these visits.
• Swag: The best swag award from the conference goes to our friends at Acxiom. They offered up a $5 gift card for taking a 7 question quiz (an incredibly detailed and complex exploration about paid search, media buying and channel usage habits).
• Attendees: There weren’t a ton of what many people associate as “big names.” You could argue that this absence was due to the fact that everyone knows who the big SEO / PPC players are, but there is without question ample opportunity to get noticed at Ad:Tech without getting drowned out.
• Hot: In terms of what was hot, mobile advertising probably took the cake. Tons of folks are looking at how mobile ads can go beyond banners and into the realm of rich media (a “Hey look it’s a Fedex guy on my mobile screen!” type of thing). Monetization was also getting a lot of attention, as folks described things like “using images as a channel” to figure out new ways to earn revenue.
• Strategy: According to Andrew Solmssen, managing director of Possible Worldwide, brands and marketers need to think “mobile-first.” Clearly, we agreed with Andrew, but also thought his insight about using technology to interact with consumers, not just for technology’s sake, was particularly important.
• Apps: According to Evan Neufeld, chief marketing officer at Ground Truth NYC, discovery for apps is a “tremendous problem.” A great point, which (especially when coupled with their re-open rates) sheds light on why app strategy is extremely tricky and requires powerful analytics.
• Parties: Hats off to everyone who braved the nighttime rain on Tuesday to go out and have a good time. San Francisco’s chilly weather certainly reared its ugly head, but for the most part revelers remained undeterred.

For those we were unable to meet at the conference this year, please shoot us a note and get in touch. And mark your calendars for next year!