Review by: Rich Poplawski

The mobile internet will surpass desktop internet usage by 2014¹. Mobile is the future, but the real question is your business prepared for the shift? Are you new to the mobile marketing space and not sure where to start? Do you want to learn and understand how to set up, run, and execute a successful marketing campaign to keep your business relevant? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then read Go Mobile.

Go Mobile is a book written by two very experienced marketing guru’s, Jeanne Hopkins, VP of Marketing for HubSpot, the world renown all-in-one online marketing company , and Jamie Turner, Founder of 60 Second Marketer, an online magazine that supports marketers with tips, tutorials, and tools. Hopkins and Turner share their marketing knowledge to provide great insights that will guide anyone through the vast, extensive, and sometimes confusing world of mobile marketing.

Go Mobile is a roadmap that provides a great overview of all the pieces needed to start, run, measure, and grow mobile marketing for your business. The book provides a four step approach:

1. Looking at the mobile marketing landscape by exploring:
• Mobile marketing terminology, concepts and strategies
• Successful mobile marketing campaigns, such as Starbucks mobile payment and reward application.
• Tools that are available in the mobile space

2. Building the foundation needed to develop a mobile marketing strategy by:
• Incorporating fundamental marketing concepts such as Four P’s and the Five C’s
• Knowing the different mobile operating systems and mobile service providers

3. Gaining insight into mobile marketing tools, such as mobile web sites, SMS, and much more

4. Managing, measuring and driving ROI

Pros:

• Great examples of successful mobile marketing campaigns around specific mobile technologies, such as Chili’s Restaurant chain taking advantage of location based services by sending free coupons for cheese dip to anyone that checked in at or around a restaurant location using FourSquare.
• Best Practices and tips on thinking like a consumer on a mobile device, developing a strategy, writing successful mobile ads, and measuring successful campaigns.
• Statistics used to back their findings and prove the success of marketing campaigns.
• Lists that provide great examples, such as successfully built Mobile Apps broken out by categories.
• The Do This/Don’t Do This after each chapter, which provides tips and advice on expanding the knowledge that was discussed in each chapter.

Cons:

• Too many examples of successful mobile marketing campaigns, but not enough details about the strategies, approaches, and analysis involved to make these campaigns successful.
• No examples of mobile marketing campaign failures. Providing examples of failure creates transparency so others can learn what not to do when developing mobile campaigns.
• No in-depth technical understanding around mobile technology, such as NFC, app building, or responsive design.

Final Thoughts:

Go Mobile is a fun, quick read that creates a great foundation around mobile marketing. The book really hammers down three basic concepts that are crucial to every successful campaign: measurability, customer insights, and innovation. If you are interested to gain a comprehensive understanding of mobile marketing and gain insights into the types of technology out there to help you build a strategy around an effective marketing campaign, then this book is perfect for you. Read Go Mobile!

¹ Danyl Bosomworth, Mobile Marketing Statistics 2012, http://www.smartinsights.com/mobile-marketing/mobile-marketing-analytics/mobile-marketing-statistics/ (May 2012)