Mobile is on just about every marketers mind today and with the news that IHS iSuppli has released projecting that PC shipments are bound for their first annual sales decline in 11 years, many speculate that consumers are going to keep buying smartphones and tablets. To state the obvious, if you are a marketer and you are not at least trying to figure out how to use mobile effectively, you will be left behind.

With all of the opportunities to advertise and connect, what are marketers doing? How is mobile being utilized today? An October report by the CMO Council gives some insight into how it is being used and it’s pretty clear that there are opportunities in areas that many are not taking advantage of.  Global mobile marketer’s activities and use reported by percentage are as follows:

51% – Use mobile to notify and inform customers

43% – Deliver content or services to mobile users

37% – Of marketers promote and advertise brands or give special offers

23% – Provide customer support and contact activities

19% – Gather information and real-time insights

18% – Acquire customers or re-activate customers

There are a lot of reasons that marketers have not kept pace with technology when it comes to mobile use, like the lack of talent and resources to make it happen, which has been reported recently in multiple studies. Marketers also cite a lack of results or difficulty measuring performance as a roadblock to further development of marketing programs to use mobile.

The good news is that the market is wide open and those who are finding success early are benefiting from lower competition and tons of opportunity. There have also been many companies started to provide products, tools and applications as well as services to the companies and marketers who are looking for help with mobile marketing implementation. The market is huge and it presents unique challenges both in design and implementation as well as tracking. For more information and resources, check out the IMGrind private forum and also iMobitrax, the proprietary mobile tracking platform.