public relations…social media…commmunications…marketing. Repeat.

As mobile marketing becomes more and more accessible to businesses and their marketing budgets, public relations and marketing professionals are finding different ways to communicate with their target audience through their phone.

According to a 2010 survey by Pew Internet Research, more than 70 percent of adult cell phone carriers use their phone to send and receive text messages, nearly 40 percent use their mobile browser to access the Internet and more than a third use their cell phones to send emails. With so many consumers relying on their cell phones to send and receive information to others, communicators should be taking the opportunity to speak to their audience in a manner that works best for them.

We’re starting to get it. According to Forrester’s 2011 Mobile Trends report, businesses are expected to spend $1 billion on mobile advertising by year-end (that’s a lot of standard text messaging fees that may apply! Sorry, just a little mobile marketing humor…). Forrester also predicts businesses will use mobile marketing to generate leads, drive foot traffic to their businesses and sell product; in addition to building brand awareness, driving online traffic and increasing their communications efforts.

Per Forrester, here are some mobile trends we can expect to see more of in 2011:

Mobile, social and local. Think Groupon. Markets will find more ways to combine mobile with social and local in an effort to attract a more targeted audience.

Dumb Smartphones. As the Android and iPhone compete to be the master smartphone, older models will become cheaper and more accessible to consumers.

Mobile Fragmentation. Blackberry, iPhone, Android, Windows. Marketers will need to prioritize based on which platforms their target audience relies on most. Cross-platform development has not yet been achieved successfully, but this may be one of the new developments to come about in 2011.

Apps versus Web. Okay, I’ll admit it. I’m #teamapp for sure. I love the instant access it gives me to whatever I need. Movie tickets, weather, horoscope, news, gossip…you name it. According to Forrester, there will be a never ending debate on which is better to have. However; the smart communicator knows you should invest in both.

Mobile to interact with the physical environment. Think QR codes or text messaging contests. Forrester predicts mobile will continue to prompt consumers to interact with their physical environment, whether that means scanning a bar code, using augmented reality or responding to a call to action that asks them to text in.

For Forrester’s complete list of trends, check out this article from MobileMarketer.com.

Now that you know why mobile marketing is important, you need to know how to improve those efforts. Shane Ketterman, writer for CopyBlogger, has created a list of tips that will help communicators engage with their mobile audience.

Include a plain text version of every message. Including a plain text copy of every HTML message you send will help eliminate potential issues for those subscribers with mobile readers that do not support HTML.

Keep links uncrowded. If your email message has links that you want your readers to click on, such as navigation back to your main site (recommended), then make sure those links stand out on their own. Imagine your loyal reader flicking around on a tiny screen to get to that link — and how frustrated you get when the links are so close together that you can’t land on the one you want. If you want clicks, make it easy.

Pull the reader in with your subject line. Like any headline, an email subject line has to capture attention quickly and drive the reader to click through. By the way, the current best practice for subject lines for mobile devices is to keep it within five words. Why? After about five to seven words, the subject line gets truncated and thus it’s a lost opportunity.

Use the right tags for your images. If your email marketing message includes images, make sure you include an alternative (alt) tag to describe what the image is. Don’t stuff this tag full of keywords, it doesn’t work. Use it for what it was meant for — to briefly describe what the image is, in a way that lets your reader make sense of it if the image isn’t visible. Many devices can display all your images correctly, but not all of them will, so it’s just smart to use alternative text to make sure every reader gets the message that image was supposed to convey.

Is your call to action clear? People using mobile devices spend a little less time taking in the content due to the smaller screen sizes and the fact that they are usually on the go, so make sure your email marketing has a clear call to action. Put it either near the beginning or somewhere where it will stand out. Don’t make it hard to find … after all, it’s the key to getting the response you want.

After writing this post, I have one question for you. Are you making the best of your mobile marketing efforts?