Build long-term customer relationships
Only a downloadable handset-resident application attains a truly direct and ongoing interactive relationship with targeted mobile consumers. Downloaded free to subscribers, a handset application provides an entertainment and social-media destination dedicated exclusively to your brand. To be successful, the mobile application must contain utility and compelling content sought by subscribers. For example, a beverage manufacturer is launching an application that delivers ever-changing photo galleries of action sports personalities; video highlights of prominent athletes, sponsored events and NASCAR motor races. And participants can upload and share their own content, encouraging every day use.

"Placing banner ads on mobile sites is just a media placement compared to downloading applications that consumers want, and allow them to interact with the brand on the go," says Doug Levy, CEO of interactive agency IMC2.

Track and measure
Web-like tracking cookies do not exist on mobile networks, making it difficult to gather consumer behavior for analysis and segmentation. Your branded application comes to the rescue, essentially serving as that tracking "cookie." Within the application, brands can follow consumers' activity -- where they visit and what content they view. Marketers can also ask profiling and survey questions over time in order to gain information for segmentation and targeting. All the while, your ongoing dialogue with consumers serves to strengthen the relationship.