ABI Research says marketers should wake up to the potential of mobile. It's just released a new White Paper, 'Mobile Marketing Strategies – Positive Trend,' which can be downloaded from the ABI Research website.

The company notes that marketing messages can reach mobile phone users in a variety of ways, including SMS text messaging, search advertising, ads within applications and video.

Neil Strother, ABI Research practice director for mobile marketing strategies, said "The trend starts with smartphones, which have reached critical mass among US mobile subscribers. These powerful devices, coupled with affordable data plans, enable people to search, browse, and watch video in ways and in volumes that have become more and more attractive to marketers."

ABI's announcement came as the MEF (Mobile Entertainment Forum) launched its Guide to M-Commerce, which explains how mobile devices can be used to purchase content, services and products.

Rimma Perelmuter, Executive Director of MEF, said "M-Commerce is not a new phenomenon for our members. The $36bn global mobile media industry is largely built on micropayments and MEF’s M-Commerce Initiative substantially expands this opportunity to the retail and content industries with today’s launch of our M-Commerce Guide. It is a comprehensive resource that brings together expert content and analysis showing all the different ways that the mobile device can be used to enable commerce for content, services and products consumed both on and off the device. The MEF member authored Guide contains essential case studies designed to help brands, content producers and retailers demystify, simplify and monetize the mobile commerce landscape."

The Guide can be downloaded from the MEF website.