by Claudia Bruemmer

With big expectations for the coming holiday season, savvy retailers and brand managers are getting their mobile sites ready for the onslaught of holiday traffic; and, for good reason. Google projected 15 percent of all searches will be made on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, and these queries will be made from mobile devices. Google also estimates 44 percent of all December searches for last-minute gifts and store locations will be done on smartphones and tablets. But that’s not all.

Besides the Google data, eMarketer predicts 9.5 percent of mobile phone users will redeem mobile coupons in 2011. Any retailer or brand manager without a functional mobile site and coupon promotions will be leaving money on the table.

Back in 2010, only 5.6 percent of consumers used a mobile device to visit retail websites on Black Friday, according to web analytics firm Coremetrics. With 15 percent expected to shop mobile this year, that’s almost triple the number of shoppers using mobile. And with a prediction of 9.5 percent of shoppers redeeming mobile coupons, that translates into 19.8 million consumers. There’s a lot of money to be made if have a functional, mobile friendly site for all these mobile shoppers and have the right promotional campaigns in place.

Retailers and brand managers that want to make mobile coupons available to consumers can do so via text messages, mobile apps, mobile commerce sites and the use of bar codes for online and in-store shopping. There are a number of technology providers, including Cellfire, HipCricket and ShopText, to name a few, that offer online and mobile campaigns retailers and brand managers can use to spread coupons among consumers.

With so many mobile consumers already using mobile coupons, retailers today really need to consider the way a mobile coupon campaign can enhance their overall mobile commerce strategy.

Retailers can use a number of different tactics to build awareness of offers by using multiple touch-points. There are many unique benefits offered by mobile campaigns, including enhanced targeting capabilities and speed to market. The ability to personalize these offers according to location, context, behavior and timeliness can increase campaign effectiveness and produce multiple responses.

A number of factors are driving the increase in the use of mobile coupons, including the rapidly increasing adoption of smartphones and tablets by consumers and the ensuing increase in the use of the mobile web and mobile apps.

Other factors contributing to the adoption of mobile coupons include: convenience, better targeting potential, speed to market and the likelihood of high engagement by consumers, especially with text-message-based coupons. Additionally, the increasing use of time-sensitive coupon deals satisfies the consumer demand for discounts in troubled economic times. As more smartphone owners access deals via email or apps on their devices, mobile will emerge as an ever more important way to access coupons quickly, effortlessly and on the go.