Despite it’s recent popularity, the mobile web is still in its infancy, technologically speaking.  But that doesn’t mean it’s too early to start talking about how brands and businesses can improve their mobile marketing strategies and start engaging users on the small screen.  We’re not advocating for Mobile 2.0, or anything like that, but as more Smartphone owners—and businesses—jump on the mobile bandwagon everyday, distinguishing your brand and reaching mobile users will become an increasingly hard task over the next few years.  This is especially critical since, as the platform advances, users are becoming harder and harder to please.

Unfortunately, there’s no one mobile marketing secret to success—as many advertisers and developers are discovering, reaching mobile users can be, at times, a game of trial and error.  That said, while there may not be an abundance of proven methods for reaching mobile users and distinguishing your brand on the mobile web, there are definitely some blunders that marketers should strive to avoid.  For businesses that need a little help managing the market and distinguishing their brand from the rest on the mobile web, here’s our guide to avoiding the 5 worst (and most common) mistakes that marketers make on the mobile web.  While we won’t say that reading this will guarantee your mobile marketing success, well—at least you can avoid the serious bloopers that many other brands and businesses are making on the mobile web today.

1. Not having a mobile website (which is to say, not having your website optimized for mobile devices).

Put simply, if you do not have a mobile-optimized website, you are failing to connect with at least some portion of the 80 million users that regularly access the mobile web from their Smartphone devices.  This isn’t a mistake made only by businesses with no mobile presence whatsoever; those that have developed branded apps but lack a mobile website are still missing out on a wealth of opportunities.  Even businesses that have developed apps for both iOS and Android devices are failing to connect with a large percentage of mobile users—for example BlackBerry users, which make up an entire 37.6 percent of mobile users in the U.S.  Although the media has spread the misconception that everyone with a Smartphone is using iOS, the market share is currently quite evenly divided.  This means that, apps or not, without a mobile website, your brand will always be limited to some extent.

2.  Pseudo-mobilization: Not having a real mobile site

This might seem confusing, but marketers should be wary of any site or business that suggests that a website can be mobilized simply by resizing objects and rearranging the web view.  (Read:) This is not a solution.  On the contrary, doing this can exacerbate the problem.  By attempting to make the same format function properly on two very different channels, you’re much more likely to drive away desktop users than gratify discerning Smartphone owners.  Though it might be an alluring option to businesses with a low budget for mobile development, or brands that need something done fast, we recommend avoiding this sort of approach.

3. Not having goals

Sound familiar? Alright, you’ve probably had parents, teachers and every other mentor-figure in your life warn you of the danger of undertaking a project without any goals or criteria for gauging success—well, as it turns out, that applies as much to mobile marketing as any other venture.  Some marketing coordinators, skeptical of the value of new media, are quick to chalk just about any mobile campaign up to a loss, when often times the problem is not with the campaign, or the channel, but rather the fact that no goals or success metrics were determined for measuring efficacy prior to launch.  Deciding what you actually want users to do with your mobile site—and thus, the criteria for determining whether or not the site is effective at driving users to perform this action—is critical to any mobile marketing strategy.

Moreover, analytics can be of great assistance, as they inform brands of which users frequent their site most, and which parts of the site mobile users find most successful.  With this information, marketers can tailor the site to a more qualified target audience, and provide content that such users are more likely to interact with.  While to some this might sound obvious it’s surprising how many businesses approach mobile marketing without any real sense of direction, what they want to accomplish, or how to accomplish it.

4.  Producing a rocky, non-fluid mobile experience

Brands can engage mobile users much more successfully by providing a fluid mobile experience that makes it easy for mobile users to navigate the site and access information or data that they may be searching for.  Sites that only have one page (the home page for example) optimized for mobile access can be frustrating to mobile users and often drive them away from the site.  Yes, it’s helpful to provide a link to the main site, but to successfully engage users, at least a few (2-3) pages of a site should be mobilized, allowing users to explore content and learn more about the services that business provides.

Additionally, with convergent marketing campaigns that in any way incorporate the mobile web, marketers should first ensure that the mobile component is fully operative, professional and appealing to the mobile user.  Convergent marketing should flow seamlessly from one channel to the next, although many that integrate the mobile web seem to struggle with this.  For example, I recently came upon a print advertisement that prompted me to scan a barcode with my Smartphone, but when I actually did so, it triggered my device to pull up a web page that was not optimized for the mobile browser.  As a mobile user, I felt as though I had been a victim of false advertising—brands should be leveraging the mobile web to connect with consumers, not just going through the motions in a half-hearted effort to keep up with the market.

5. Overwhelming mobile users

This should be an easy one, but is surprisingly not obvious to many marketers.  A mobile website shouldn’t have all of the same copy and content as a desktop site.  By trying to jam-pack all of that into just a few pages of your mobile site, you ‘re really just squeezing a mess of unorganized (and often irrelevant) information into a tiny space.  No user wants to slog through a mobile site with all of that content and data just to find the few bits of information that are actually useful to him/her—it’s like searching for a needle in a haystack.  As with so many other forms of media, when it comes to the mobile web, your best bet is always to keep it simple, clean and presentable. If users don’t find what they’re looking for in the basic information displayed on your mobile site, provide a link to the main site, but don’t try to cram it all into 3 uber-long pages.

We hope that these tips are helpful whether you’re just starting out on the small screen, or working to perfect your mobile marketing strategy and set your brand apart from the rest.  While there are plenty of other mobile marketing mistakes you should avoid as well as some guidelines for best mobile practices, these should help you get off to the right start and avoid the biggest mistakes that both tiny businesses, and corporate brand-mammoths have made on the mobile web thus far.  If you have any additional tips for avoiding mobile pitfalls, please include them in comments below!