The fact is – and Best Buy has apparently accepted it – showrooming is not going away. Retailers must embrace that consumers may visit their stores with the intention of showrooming.

It might seem odd that a former chief marketing officer and the founder of a company which helps brands advertise on mobile would pen an article questioning the long-term viability of paid media.

Text messaging has replaced the phone call as the preferred method of communication. In fact, in 2012, wireless carriers are likely to handle more text messages than mobile phone call minutes.

Some of the ways that marketers with a mobile play can go beyond the norm with social media and more meaningfully connect with consumers.

Unless retailers can compete with online prices for the same product, they will lose the consumer to an online retailer at a better price somewhere on the mobile Web.

Content services need differentiation, and brands that transparently offer increased utility in exchange for semi-private information such as location data, address book contacts and photo albums are well received.

Some 40,000 executives and hundreds of exhibitors are said to have descended on the International CTIA Wireless show this week in New Orleans. And yet that did not cut the mustard for one discerning delegate.

When Ian Carrington, Google’s director of mobile marketing, told an audience last year, “If you don’t have a mobile strategy, you don’t have a future strategy,” marketers took note.

Words of wisdom from some of those who were the first to include mobile in their integrated marketing plans.

Suggestions for small to midsize businesses looking to take hold of their integrated marketing mix with mobile apps as a potential emerging centerpiece.