In an economic environment where consumers are hyper-connected, more conscious, spending less, switching brands, and searching for deals online, mobile presents great opportunities for brands to turn browsers into buyers - especially for those buyers who still make unplanned purchases, writes AdAge.

Marketers have been slapped in the face with ROI ever since online advertising made itself a force to be reckoned with. ROI on branding is usually measured in terms of impressions, engagement, or time spent, but does not always translate into direct sales.

And now, mobile marketing can do for traditional commerce what online advertising did for e-commerce: make it measurable, and make it count.

A recent survey indicates that nearly a third of UK shoppers used their mobile phones while shopping. Of that group, 75% formed an opinion while shopping, and that opinion encouraged them to buy the item.

Most brands have yet to take full advantage of mobile marketing in-store. Here are some useful mobile in-store applications:

• Provide information. Customers are using their mobile phones to get trusted opinions from their friends before buying. This alternative and real-time word-of-mouth method is becoming increasingly popular: consumers trust fellow customers’ and friends’ opinion more than a salesperson's advice.
• Drive traffic. Targeting by location should be a priority for brands. Where is your nearest store? Where can I buy one of your products right now? Including a mobile prompt on all outdoor creative allows marketers to increase awareness and drive consumers into a store immediately.
• Create loyalty programs and mobile coupons. Mobile loyalty programs offer a number of targeting and personalization options. For example, a company might set up a system that links online and mobile incentive placement with in-store redemption and lets customers transfer all deals directly to a loyalty card on their phone. This also makes the coupons trackable, and allows marketers to measure the effectiveness of incentives from online ad impression to retail purchase.

Some simple SMS-based ways to deliver mobile incentives:

• Informing shoppers of text-to-enter mobile loyalty program as they come in, or offering customers incentives to text in.
• Increasing brand affinity by offering branded or partner content to consumers, allowing brands to reach a captive audience as shoppers download content while they are waiting in line.
• Advocating brand utility by setting up a service where customers can find useful information about a product (e.g. food and wine pairing, cosmetic color recommendations).

New technologies will almost certainly redefine the shopping experience. Two upcoming technological innovations that will make their appearance soon are quick-response (QR) codes, which direct links to mobile websites via physical codes, and augmented reality (AR), an application that will let consumers point their phone at a product and see which of their friends liked it.

But marketers rather than developers will have to define this future. When brands start to take advantage of simple SMS and mobile web technology to enhance and extend their in-store marketing efforts, they can expect to see an impressive return on investment.

A recent study predicts mobile advertising revenues in the US and Canada to grow from $208 million in 2009 to $1.5 billion by 2013, despite possible early consumer resistance to mobile ads.

Another report found that the number of consumers seeking local information on a mobile device grew 51% from March 2008 to March 2009, and that mobile subscribers increasingly use downloaded applications and SMS to access local content.