Local Mobile Marketing Spend to Grow 2.5X by 2015

Total U.S mobile promotional spend in 2010 shows a pronounced focus on national., rather than local, campaigns, according to Mobitrove. Almost $2.9 billion of $3 billion worth of "promotions" spending was for national promotions, or about 97 percent of mobile promotional dollars spent in 2010.

One suspects that is going to change over the next several years, as social shopping capabilities and focus starts to grow. The changes might be quite gradual for the first four to five years, as typically is the case when a new business segment gets traction.

After five years, growth is likely to be substantial, as retailers learn how to use local promotions with location services and social networking.

Mobile Marketing Spend to Sextuple 2010-2015:

Google's Local Strategy: Social and Location are Key

When Will Mobile Providers Move Big into Location-Based Advertising?

Location-based mobile apps are shaping up to be a major channel for local advertising, for some obvious reasons. Mobile devices are sensors that can alert advertisers to a potential customer's proximity.

That means proximity (maybe a better way of describing the value than "location") creates a new channel for local advertising revenues around which a proximity marketing business can be built.

Local advertising is a $133 billion revenue stream in the United States. You would expect Yellow Page companies, Facebook and Google to pitch mobile "proximity advertising" services.

But, at some point, mobile service providers are going to make a play as well. By definition, mobile providers know where their users are. All 293 million of them, or about 93 percent of the U.S. population. Though there are significant challenges to scale at the level of designing rich media campaigns using specific smartphone features, virtually all 293 million mobiles can receive text messages.

So it would make sense for carriers to create and sell proximity advertising with reach of 293 million potential customers. That sort of thing requires new levels of cooperation between the major carriers, though. Some believe they won't be able to work together. But the carrot of a universal ad platform built on proximity, available to 93 percent of all U.S. residents, has to be appealing. Isis, the mobile payments venture launched by AT&T, Verizon Wireless and T-Mobile USA, is one example.

5 Location And Mobile Tech Predictions For 2011

48% Increase in Local Online Ad Spending This Year

Borrell Associates expects a 48 percent increase in local online ad spending in 2008, bringing spending to $12.6 billion. Local search and online video advertising will drive much of the activity, Borrell says.

Local search advertising will more than double to $5 billion, while locally placed online video will triple to almost $1.3 billion.

A major component of local video advertising will be long-form pieces for home, automotive and health-related categories, the firm argues.

Most yellow pages publishers, cable companies, newspapers, radio stations and TV stations are still pinning their hopes on their traditional sales reps being able sell online ad packages. But local sales entities might have to create separate online-only sales forces to get the job done.

Most sales entities face the same problem: it is tough to grow sales for new lines of business when those new lines represent a small percentage of the overall sales opportunity and might even cannibalize the existing business.