Mobile marketing (cell phones, not cars with billboards attached :-) is probably the most exciting new frontier in direct marketing. With the cell phone being the most personal, the most context sensitive, and the most attended-to communications channel in the media landscape, it clearly represents a big opportunity to reach customers effectively.

Mobile marketing is about immediacy, intimacy, and context. Messages must be important enough to interrupt audiences’ social lives (the center of which is often a cell phone), and must be relevant enough (timing, subject, response method) to call the user to act — immediately (do YOU reread TXT messages a second time?).

Whatever your political affiliation, you should appreciate Obama’s latest foray into mobile marketing. As highlighted in the Mobile Industry Review, Obama has announced that he’ll send his VP pick out by mobile phone first–before a press release, before the media finds out. Obama’s strategy here is brilliant: he’s building a permission marketing asset which may plan a major role on election day.

I know a little bit about political campaigns, and one of the most important parts is the “Get Out The Vote” (GOTV) effort on election day. Democrats in particular focus on GOTV efforts as a major push–and they dread it when election day showers dampen voter turnout. (Republican voter turnouts are, strangely, less affected by the weather.) Obviously, reaching voters via cell phone on election day would be ideal.

Since mobile phone directories don’t exist, Obama’s campaign had to build its own; using the VP pick as an opt-in lure. With these mobile phone numbers, Obama is actually building the ultimate GOTV machine: the mobile phone numbers of his supporters allow him to contact them immediately, on the day of the election day, and ask them to vote, bring friends to vote, and make a call or two on his behalf. Since marketers like Obama can depend on users ALWAYS carrying their cell phones, it’s a sure bet that they can be reached before the polls close.

Election day is a Tuesday, and it just might rain. Imagine if you could reach out to all YOUR customers on a rainy Tuesday and tell them that your bays are open, there are open tables, that hard to find items are in stock, or that something’s on sale. The immediacy of mobile brings an entirely new perspective to the marketing landscape: watch Obama use it, and then use it for yourself.