MEGA (mobile enterprise growth alliance) is a programme that brings together industry & government with entrepeneurs to build our local mobile industry.  The supporters of MEGA reads like a who’s who of the mobile industry in Australia.   Dozens of local mobile practitioners with a broad mix of technical, creative and business skills have volunteered their time to teach and mentor MEGA participants over the duration of the 4 month programme. The culmination is a pitch day, when participants have the opportunity to lay out their business plans in front of potential investors and business people.

The closing date for applications is this Friday and participants will be selected based on their background, experience, project ideas and above all their passion and enthusiasm.   Passion was a key theme of the info session actually.  The inimitable Justin Brow is a walking advertisement for passion, and his enthusiasm had rubbed off on everyone by the end of the session.  I think this is a genuinely exciting programme and one I am proud to be a supporter of.

You can’t beat the opportunity to be guided by industry experts and introduced to high profile business leaders in your field of interest.  If you have a mobile idea, or just really want to get a foot in the door in the mobile industry, this could be the opportunity you’ve been looking for.

You’ve got til next Friday to apply, so get onto it ASAP!  And, if I can give you a little hint – I heard it said at the info session that if your application is overflowing with nothing but passion & enthusiasm – you’re a sure thing to be selected!

This latest report is based an about 100 mobile campaigns, from Amethon’s global customer base. All of the data comes from developed countries with similar mobile penetration and is normalisd by population. Given this, and the fact that Amethon is an Australian company, I would suggest the data is fairly relevant to Australia.

The report ‘Mobile Advertising – After the Click-Through’ focuses on user interaction for mobile campaigns AFTER clicking on a banner ad.

Some of Amethon’s findings

• Mobile Sites (including Telco & off-deck) make up 23% of all mobile campaigns
• Automotive, Movie and Alcohol categories make up 44% of all mobile campaigns
• 50% of Movie category campaigns and 38% of Alcohol campaigns have a downloadable component
• Page views per visit were almost identical for campaigns with/without downloads
• Average page views per visist is 1.53
• Bounce rates for mobile campaigns sites are very high – 67%
• Excluding bounce visits (leaving after 1 page) average page views is high – 4.15%
• Only 33% of consumers venture beyond the first page of a mobile campaign site
• Mobile Services are the most common campaign type (22%) however these have below average page views per visit (1.35)

I thought the report successfully highlighted the current failure of our industry to deliver campaign microsites that offer a compelling, engaging experience.

Bounce rates (the number of people who leave after the first page) are significantly higher than online, where you might aim for 20 – 30% as an ideal. This highlights just how badly we as an industry are using ‘micro-sites’ in my opinion. While Mobile Advertising boasts higher than average click through rates, advertisers are clearly not optimising their campaigns to hold on to customers once they have clicked through.

Another observation made by Amethon is that campaigns have little ‘made for mobile’ content – ie. they are repurposing TV ads, movie trailers and the like. In my mind this is closely linked to the high bounce rates.

Mobile is a unique medium with obvious advantages for interaction, conversation and engagement. If we squander this opportunity by throwing old, re-used content at mobile users, we should expect little more.

Mobile Advertising is not just about getting the click throughs – it’s about what happens next, and it makes me tired to see the same old strategies being trotted out time and time again. It’s actually been years now. Let’s try something different!!

So what do you have to do to bring those bounce rates down and pick up average page views per visit?

• Clearly communicate the benefit of clicking on an ad – and don’t disappoint the customer once they arrive
• Use your mobile destination to create a MOBILE specific interaction by taking advantage of the unique properties of the medium (location, context, identity, mobility, immediacy)
• Don’t repurpose content from another medium – unless it makes perfect sense to do so (Movie trailers are an example that work. TV Ads are generally not)
• Use a mobile specialist to build your mobile site / micro-site / landing page. They know how to work with the small screen and optimise for different handsets. An average (or crappy) user experience does not encourage your customers to stick around.
• Think about mobile at the beginning of your campaign plan and integrate with online & offline components, with mobile to tie it all together.
• Be creative (please???)

Mobile is not ‘the little web’. It’s something else altogether – a whole new medium. Use it that way, and you WILL see results.

Now let’s cross our fingers that Amethon’s report this time next year will show a prettier picture and prove we’ve learned our lessons and moved on from here!

For more information and to request a copy of the report, visit Amethon.

It’s now time to up the stakes and create a new, more professional home on the web.   So welcome to the brand new Mobilista, full of all sorts of mobile industry goodness for Australia!

The centrepiece to this site is my blog about mobile advertising and marketing in Australia, but there’s more to it than that.  I hope to provide a valuable resource to the Australian mobile industry by consolidating links, articles and information that will help businesses work with the mobile channel in Australia.

The launch of this site marks phase 1 in a rebranding of my consulting business as well.   Over time the blog has grown to become core to the business, and so “Mobilist” is in the process of becoming “MobilistA“ as well. No more confusion!

Take a look around and please let me know what you think.  The site and content are a work in progress and I am very keen to hear suggestions on what else to include.

I’m also open to hearing from contributors who have an opinion about our local mobile industry.  If you already write about mobile stuff, please drop me a line with links to your content – I’d love to reference it.  If you’d like to write about something that is relevant to the audience of Mobilista, get in touch and I’d be happy to invite you to write a guest post here.  And finally comments on all posts are very welcome, whether you agree with the opinions or not.  It would be great to get some discussion going on some of the current issues facing us all.

The site also includes  information about the consulting, training, speaking and mobile advertising services that Mobilista offers.

Thanks to everyone I have met over the last few years, and for all your encouragement and support in making Mobilista a viable business.  Getting to this point would not have been possible without the awesomeness of groups like Mobile Monday, the AIMIA Mobile Industry Group and all of the passionate individuals that make up our  strong and vibrant mobile community down under.

I hope to see, speak, tweet, comment, facebook, email, chat or hear from you soon!

Emily

Oliver, Jenny and I have been putting the finishing touches on the course materials and I am really  looking forward to the opportunity to work with a group of enthusiastic wannabe mobile marketers!  The course will cover the latest trends in mobile technology and marketing, and teach participants how to take advantage of them.

Course Content includes:

• how to engage consumers through the mobile channel
• the logistics of implementing a mobile marketing campaign
• how to integrate mobile into your overall marketing strategies

I’ll be running the show down in Melbourne on June 18th and will have a few guest lecturers there on the day to impart their wisdom and expertise.  Jenny Williams (IdeaGarden) will fire up Sydney attendees on June 11th with a little bit of support from yours truly (I’ll be making cups of tea)

I would love to see you there.  I know if you’re reading Mobilista then you’re already interested in mobile marketing – perhaps this is the perfect opportunity to take that interest and turn it into some really exciting mobile marketing activities before 2009 is out.

At the start of the year I predicted we’d see some great local examples of mobile marketing and advertising in Australia in 2009.  Will you be behind one of those great examples??

MEGA (Mobile Enterprise Growth Alliance) started in Adelaide last year and is now rolling out in Victoria & NSW. It’s an industry led programme in which leading mobile industry experts guide participants through the development of new business ideas over a 2 month period.

Each session is run by a local mobile professional with industry experience. Participants learn all there is to know about the Australian & Global mobile environments, and work together on business plans for their ideas. The course culminates in an opportunity to pitch to investors.

The list of sponsors & presenters in Melbourne & Sydney is a who’s who of the mobile industry locally. The lucky participants will have access to the best & brightest this country has to offer and I really look forward to seeing what comes out of the 2008 series.

The programme is open to individuals, teams & corporates. Organisers are keen to see people from all skill backgrounds apply – from programmers, content producers & artists to entrepeneurs and business professionals. They’re looking for enthusiasm & creativity more than anything else.

If you have an idea based around mobiles that you’d love to get off the ground, this is a fantastic opportunity. Applications close May 5th. Go to www.mega.org.au to apply or email justin@mega.org.au