Direct marketing firm Harte-Hanks Inc. has formalized its relationship with iLoop Mobile for the use of mobile technology and services aimed at its clients.

The deal will let Harte-Hanks incorporate mobile into its direct marketing strategy and tactics for clients across industry sectors. This is yet another indication that mobile is now being considered a key element of direct marketing, especially for customer acquisition and retention purposes.

"The mobile channel, by far, boasts the greatest potential for direct marketing above any other marketing channel available today," said Michael Becker, vice president of mobile strategy at iLoop and the executive responsible for stitching the alliance.

"Consider this -- the mobile phone number is a unique, personal, identifier," he said. "One is not simply sending a direct marketing message to someone's house, email account or place of business when practicing direct mobile marketing. Rather, one, when employing direct mobile marketing practices, is engaging an individual directly, literally, wherever the individual may be in the world."

Yardley, PA-based Harte-Hanks Direct Marketing will have access to iLoop's mFinity Platform. This self-service software-as-a-service offering will allow the creation and management of SMS and IVR campaigns, mobile sites and mobile-enabled Web sites.

In addition to licensing its platform to Harte-Hanks, iLoop will offer managed and professional services to help the firm when it gets its mobile-integrated direct marketing programs running.

Also, Harte-Hanks can draw upon iLoop's mobile labs team for mobile strategy and creative support, plus the network of partnership.

"Harte-Hanks has been helping our clients with mobile marketing strategy and campaign design since 2006," said Jeannine Falcone, managing director of Harte-Hanks Direct.

"Through our relationship with iLoop Mobile, we're now able to provide campaign execution as well in an integrated manner with other customer communications," she said.

Direct marketers going mobile
Harte-Hanks, which also publishes the Shoppers weekly titles in California and Florida, is one of a growing list of direct marketing firms now engaged in mobile.

For example, database marketing giant Acxiom most recently partnered with Acuity Mobile and also launched its own proprietary mobile technology. Experian partnered last fall with SmartReply to add voice and mobile marketing for clients. Lyris HQ is now extending from email to mobile.

These marketers also understand mobile's uniqueness, even as a direct tool. Partners such as iLoop Mobile certainly stress that.

"The key to successful direct mobile marketing and consumer engagement through the mobile channel is the strict adherence to a consumer's choice to be engaged or not," Mr. Becker said.

"Marketers must respect consumer choice and obtain consumer permission first before practicing direct marketing via the mobile channel, that is, direct mobile marketing," he said.

Marketers can obtain this consent through the practice of indirect mobile marketing -- the mobile enhancement of media such as television, print, radio, direct mail and the Internet with the placement of text messaging, mobile Internet or related calls to action. Such actions invite a customer or prospect to engage.

"Mobile marketing presents organizations with the opportunity to provide relevant, precisely targeted messages to people who have opted in to receive them, at the moment when they will most value them -- the very tenets of a direct response medium," Harte-Hanks Direct's Ms. Falcone said.

Based in San Jose, CA, iLoop has run campaigns and mobile efforts for advertisers such as Coca-Cola Co.'s Diet Coke Plus, Samsung, Vans, Mandee, M&Ms, Deutsche Bank, Subaru and Western Union.

ILoop has run those mobile efforts through ad agencies including R/GA, Ogilvy, The Martin Agency, Access 360 Media and VML. It also works with media and entertainment companies such as Yahoo, Paramount, E!, Travel Channel, Warner Bros., Sony Pictures and The Weather Channel.

The Obama presidential campaign also used iLoop's platform to create its mobile site.

Technology gives way to ROI
Mobile's use in brand advertising and direct marketing campaigns, sites and applications will only increase with increased awareness of its potentials. Deals such as Harte-Hanks' licensing of iLoop's technology certainly helps bring mobile into the mainstream.

"I believe that in the last 12 months the industry has made a shift from mobile being primarily driven by the technology argument -- concerns on how to do it -- to it now begin driving my ROI measures and the achievement of a marketing manager's strategic marketing objectives," Mr. Becker said.

"Don't get me wrong, the technology is still critical," he said. "However, companies like iLoop Mobile have demonstrated that they can and continue to reliably deliver on the promise of mobile marketing. That is, marketers no longer need to concern themselves with ?Will it work?'

"Companies like iLoop Mobile have proven that it can, especially for mass-marketing mobile paths like SMS, voice and the mobile Internet, as well as with emerging niche market plays like the iPhone applications.

"Now that the technical question is behind us ? the industry can now focus its efforts on ROI measures and the effort to integrate mobile into marketing strategies and tactics. In a number of verticals, like automotive, mobile marketing has consistently generated results.

"In the next year, we'll find the same to be true in other vertical industries as well, as more and more marketers embrace and learn how and when to employ mobile marketing and the diverse methods of engagement that it enables."