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In a recent blog post, corporate communications leader Shel Holtz (blog.holtz.com) reviews the new Forrester study which talks about the urgency of companies integrating mobile as part of their corporate communications strategy.
graphic via whatsnextblog.com

Just as I hung up the phone from answering a reporter’s questions about communicating via mobile devices, an email hit my in-box from Forrester asking if I wanted to see their new report, 2011 Mobile Trends. And all this after yesterday’s podcast episode of For Immediate Release (FIR) included a discussion on the potential for tablet-only PR efforts.

For some time now, I’ve been telling my clients and audiences that they’re already well behind the curve if they don’t have a mobile strategy.

The Forrester study reinforces that position. In fact, the study echoes it pretty closely, noting in its recommendations, “A majority of companies either do noth have a mobile strategy or are only just starting to build one. Forrester believes that they must integrate mobile as part of their overall corporate strategy as a matter of some urgency.”

I won’t reiterate the flood of statistics that support the need for a mobile strategy—the surge in smartphone adoption, the dollars people are spending via their mobile phones, the increased social media interaction on mobile devices, the uptake of tablets and so on. For purposes of this post, if you haven’t seen the numbers, just take it as an article of faith that a mobile strategy is now a requirement.

Forrester has identified 10 trends shaping the mobile market this year, which report co-author Thomas Husson has listed on his blog. A couple jumped off the page at me.

The term “mobile” will mean a lot more than mobile phones

While “only mobile phones will sell in the hundreds of millions and are truly ‘pocketable,’” according to the report, there’s no denying that tablets are establishing themselves as an important category. The prominence of tablets at CES earlier this year is a harbinger of where tablets are headed. Even tablets that earned early derision, such as the Blackberry Playbook, earned converts at CES, including Leo Laporte, who has gone from skeptic to true believer. Then there’s the Motorola Xoom and the Honeycomb version of the Samsung Galaxy Tab that’s on the horizon.

And, of course, there are dozens more tablets in the works from a variety of companies—and don’t look for the iPad to lose steam anytime soon, even if, just like the iPhone, the iPad served to raise the bar for the rest of the industry that will ultimately overtake the iPad (just as Android phones overtook the iPhone).

People will use their tablets differently than their iphones. I have the Samsung Galaxy Tab, and I find that I have a largely different set of apps on the tablet than my phone, such as Taptu, a Flipboard-like app for Android. The screen on the phone is just too small for this to be truly useful, but the tablet is a perfect size fo consuming this kind of content.

Eventually, iPad-only publications like News Corp’s The Daily will either be ported to Android or Android competitors will emerge, offering new opportunities for PR. As PRWeek noted (the article I referenced on this week’s FIR), the pitch to editors now can take new forms that accommodate the unique interactive and multimedia characteristics of tablets.

And, of course, there’s the potential for communications-focused apps and mobile widgets to consider.

Mobile will increasingly prompt users to interact with their physical environment

Dave Robinett left a comment to a post I wrote a week or so back on QR codes in which he argued that they won’t have much of an impact. “QR Codes have NO REACH,” he wrote. “QR reader penetration in the US is 5% or less. In any case, the ceiling is 25%—the current penetration of smartphones—which means 3/4 of your prospective customers cannot use them (and in reality, more like 99% of consumers are not equipped or able to use them). Hence, what’s the point?”

Forrester, on the other hand, lists QR codes, along with mobile augmented reality apps, as factors that will prompt consumers “to hold up their smartphones to interact with the world around them. These initiatives are likely to remain niche but will help raise consumer awareness of new forms of interaction via mobile devices.”

I wonder how long QR codes and AR will remain niche. To eschew these technologies simply because there’s currently limited penetration is shortsighted. The proliferation of QR codes will prompt more people to get the apps to read them. Ultimately, I expect smartphones to come with code readers already installed.

Do you want to figure out how to use QR codes and AR after your competition is already reaping the benefits? The speed with which these are gaining momentum is all the evidence I need to make the case to start figuring out their application to your communciation efforts now.

The Forrester report also mentions NCF—near field communication—which will enable payments at physical locations via smartphone. Just today, Ars Technica reported that the next-generation iPhone could include this technology.

Companies will invest first in convenient services for customers; acquisition will come second

Rather than deploy mobile technologies to attract new business, companies will concentrate on the customers they already have. That’s just smart business, particularly in light of all the advice floating around out there to “flip the funnel” and focus on building more business—and getting new business referrals—from existing customers.

A quick scroll through the apps on my HTC Evo shows that I’ve made tremendous use already of apps from my bank, from PayPal, from Amazon.com. eBay expects to do a couple billion in sales over its mobile app. And then there are the online services on which I rely, such as DropBox and Evernote, along with the media I consume, from sources like CNN and The Huffington Post, all of which continue to get my attention and my business because they have established mobile access.

“The more direct financial returns realized through revenue gains and costs reduced or avoided will elude companies until consuemrs substantially adopt and use mobile services,” the report asserts, but again, that adoption rate will be rapid and now is the time to start figuring it out.

Other trends

The other trends Forrester identifies have to do with the proliferation of smartphones to a less technologically sophisticated audience, fragmention of the market, the not-so-important role of 4G networks, the (irrelevant) debate between apps and the mobile Internet and the role of casual gaming. It all makes for interesting reading if you have a spare $499 to dish out for the report.

The report also offers four recommendations for product stratgists, highlighted by the admonition to “anticipate and measure the impact of mobile initiatives.” Which gets back to what I was telling the reporter who called this morning: Tactics come last in a strategic planning effort. Start with a review of the technologies and how they align with your business goals and opportunities.

Or, as the report puts it, “Mobile is one of the most disruptive technologies today, and you should anticipate how mobile could affect your business in the years to come.”

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