You are the CMO or the head of marketing for your company, and you’ve just finalized your social media plans for 2011 at the request of the CEO. Despite the unknowns out there, you are comfortable with your target audience, your message, your content plan, and the platforms you will use. You’ve even got a great candidate who loves the brand and wants to be the evangelist. But last week, your social media evangelist brought you an iPad to try out. You take it home for the weekend, you use it nonstop, and now you are thinking, “Where does this fit in my plans for next year?” While 2011 will see huge growth in spending on mobile advertising, and the display and search markets are back on track from the semi-slump of 2009, where does the iPad and other tablets to be announced from Google, Dell, Nokia, and others fit into your plans?

From a marketer’s perspective, the Web browser is pretty well understood — targeted banner ads that ideally would be integrated into content so as not to be intrusive. Mobile is getting cooler, and the ad platform to support visible ads on small screens is in the hands of the two (now) most popular smartphone platforms, Apple and Android. But this tablet segment seems to be gaining traction as a platform for what marketers dream of:

Forrester is launching a new survey to find out how marketing leaders like you integrate the mobile channel into their marketing strategy.

Planning and organizing for the use of mobile technologies is a complex task. Some players are laggards. Some don’t think of the mobile channel as a priority. On the other hand, others are clearly ahead of the curve. Yet, the one question we consistently get is: “How does my organization compare with others in the integration of the mobile channel?”

We will try to answer that question with this ongoing Mobile Maturity Survey and more specifically how marketing leaders:

• Coordinate the mobile channel with other existing channels.
• Measure the impact of the mobile channel.
• Plan to spend in the mobile channel in 2011.

Here’s how you can help:

The following post is from my colleague and our CMO Group Advisor, Erin Streeter. I thought this topic was critical to our community of marketing leaders. If you have any questions for us, please comment below, reach out to me, or contact Erin at estreeter@forrester.com.

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As the Senior Advisor for Forrester’s CMO Group, an executive peer networking organization, I field strategy questions from senior marketers on a daily basis. And while I’m constantly getting questions about social media (“How do we get started?”, “What is its place in our marketing mix?”, “Can we even play given our regulated industry?”), one CMO Group Member recently asked a very straightforward, but extremely challenging, question: “What proof does Forrester have that social media adds to the revenue stream?”

Hello Marketing Leadership Professionals.

Forrester has relauched its blog platform to allow you to follow individual analysts and streams of research more easily. Here is what Cliff Condon, our guru of the new platform, has to say about the new platform. Please let me know what content you would like to see from the Marketing Leadership team as we build our individual and group voice on this new and more flexible platform.

Thanks,

David

With all of the news about Leno and O'Brien fighting for time slots on NBC's nightly post-prime time schedule, their ratings have shot up. But the fight for those slots is tough for NBC to justify since two talk show host did not equal more audience, and left the NBC affiliates and Fallon in the dust. While the ratings have risen temporarily, the overall trends has been a downward spiral.