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[Posted by Neil Strother]

Heads-up on a new report up on our site on mobile marketing gaining strength, even in this down economy: " Best Practices: Mobile Marketing." (If you're a Forrester client, it's available in full.)

First, many mobile marketing budgets are growing, according to a survey of U.S. interactive marketers we conducted:

Also, the other takeaway is not only are mobile budgets growing, the number of marketers looking to leverage mobile is on the rise, with nearly one third of interactive marketers we surveyed using mobile and another third planning to do so.

If you're among those planning to use mobile, or you've tested it and could still use some help, this report offers a guide to best practices which can make the effort less daunting. We recommend starting with the "POST" methodology (People, Objectives, Strategy and Technology) to frame a mobile effort. For example, Sears noticed more people accessing its online site from mobile phones, but they weren't sticking around or converting into customers. So the retailer deployed a mobile-optimized site and now drives traffic to that site with mobile and online advertising. That's the People part of POST. We interviewed 23 agencies and mobile marketing experts, so there are plenty of other examples in the report.

Mobile marketing is still emerging as a channel, and there remain challenges, like standards for campaign measurement and developing broader reach. But current practitioners have learned valuable lessons, and their best practices can help anyone who is just getting started.

How has your company used mobile marketing? Are there lessons you can share? I'd like to hear from you. Post a comment below.

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Here's a conversation I often have with marketers:

If you're seeking word of mouth, you should know who your best customers are . . . by name. You should be feeding them previews of new products, asking their opinion of features you're considering, and finding out how they think to build marketing copy. You should get testimonials from them. And you should provide places where can submit their own opinions, and others can see it — ratings and reviews, Facebook pages, community forums, or whatever it takes.

Now, consider this. Some of your best customers are those who had a problem . . . but you reached out and found them and fixed it. There is no one more enthusiastic than a friend who used to hate you.

Are you reaching out like this? @comcastcares is.

Or do you still think about customers by the thousands, and not individually?

What if you could reach out to them individually, but do it efficiently? I ought to write a book about that.

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By Josh Bernoff

Augie Ray offered us $500 to write about his blog. But as he figured out, Forrester doesn't allow research or blogs to accept sponsorships. So I'll decline.

There's a little confusion here, part of it intentional on Augie's part, so let me clear things up.

We've only written about what marketers should do. They already provide samples and other exchanges of value to bloggers. We say it's ok for them to pay bloggers directly, as long as they require that the payment be disclosed, and allow the blogger to say whatever he or she wants about the product. That's sponsored conversation.

We haven't written about what bloggers should do, so I'll do that now. Bloggers should do whatever they want. If you want to be a blogger that doesn't accept any sort of sponsorship or payment, that's fine. Many bloggers are like this since they want to avoid any sort of suggestion of undue influence. This includes Forrester blogs and Seth Godin.

Some bloggers allow ads to appear on their site, including news outlets. That's fine.

Some bloggers have posts on their site that talk about sponsors, which is clearly noted. This is fine.

Some bloggers will accept money in exchange for posting on a topic with disclosure and authenticity. This is sponsored conversation, and it's what Chris Brogan did, for example. We think that's fine, others disagree.

Some bloggers will take money to do anything, regardless of disclosure or authenticity. I don't have any to point out to you, since such bloggers have no credibility and generally, no audience. If you are a marketer and you find one like this, avoid him. If you are a blogger like this, good luck to you, but we want nothing to do with you.