About Forrester
Forrester Research, Inc. is an independent research company that provides pragmatic and forward-thinking advice to global leaders in business and technology.

Melissa is a research director and principal analyst serving Marketing Leadership Professionals. As Forrester's leading authority on mobile marketing, she has defined the stages of mobile marketing evolution, the best objectives for mobile marketing, and the always addressable customer to help brands develop their mobile marketing practice and successfully engage their increasingly mobile customers. Melissa also brings to her mobile research deep expertise and experience in social media, which gives her a powerful understanding of how these complementary technologies can be used in combination to effectively bring marketers and customers ever closer together.
Melissa has been quoted frequently in publications such as The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, and Fortune magazine. She has spoken at the Churchill Club, OMMA Global, SXSW, and Social Media Week on mobile marketing and social media.
Before joining Forrester, Melissa was the director of community strategy at Time Lifestyle Digital group, where she was responsible for community and social media initiatives across the network's 10 titles, which include Real Simple, Southern Living, and Cooking Light. Prior to joining Time in 2007, Melissa was part of Crayon, a conversational marketing consultancy, where she managed social media projects for brands like Coca-Cola and American Airlines. Previously, Melissa held senior product and community roles at Meetup, the world's largest network of local groups, and Bolt.com, a community of more than 10 million teenagers and young adults. In parallel with her work in social media, Melissa led early innovation initiatives in mobile marketing at several of her previous companies.
Melissa earned a B.A. in drama and philosophy from Loyola University New Orleans, an M.A. in liberal studies from The New School, and an M.F.A. in dramaturgy and script development from Columbia University.
Delivering Utility At Speed To Perpetually Connected Customers
Customers are in the midst of a total mind shift. As a result of their perpetual mobile connections, their expectations have changed. They're not interested in your messaging and logos. They want...
The Ultra-Connected Customer Will Upturn Marketing
In 2013, the ultra-connected customer base will grow at a staggering pace, destabilizing marketing as you've come to know it. This report identifies the changes you'll see in your customers'...
Landscape: The Mobile Marketing Playbook
This report for interactive marketers describes the mobile marketing landscape. Interactive marketers are finally beginning to take mobile seriously — and discovering how different and more...
Road Map: The Mobile Marketing Playbook
This report provides a road map for interactive marketers who are responsible for mobile marketing. As consumer mobile adoption balloons and as hardware, software, and interfaces evolve, interactive...

Strategic Plan: The Mobile Marketing Playbook
This report helps interactive marketers craft a strategic plan for their mobile marketing. Mobile is hot. As with most hot topics in technology, marketers may be tempted to adopt strategies that are...
When And How Interactive Marketers Should Build Apps For Marketing Purposes
Mobile apps hold exciting potential for interactive marketers to reach their audiences through mobile devices in ways the mobile Web can't. But today, mobile apps receive a mixed response from...

Vision: The Mobile Marketing Playbook
This report introduces Forrester's vision of mobile marketing for interactive marketing professionals: Discover the new ultra-connected customer, for whom mobile is the key touchpoint. In 2010, we...

Continuous Improvement: The Social Marketing Playbook
Interactive marketers' success in social media has attracted other departments' attention. But well-meaning nonmarketers sometimes commit risky blunders as they join the fray. To ensure that social...
Organization: The Social Marketing Playbook
To prepare for the future of interactive marketing, as marketers you must follow the CORE directive to: customize marketing experiences, optimize decisions and processes, respond to changing market...
More people own smartphones than ever before and they’re using them more often too. This makes a mobile marketing strategy crucial for any interactive marketer. Yet today we find that although...

The Nine Agencies That Matter Most And How They Stack Up
In Forrester's 37-criteria evaluation of US digital agencies with mobile marketing services, we identified the nine significant agencies in this category — AKQA, iCrossing, Ogilvy, Possible...

How Interactive Marketers Should Tap Twitter For Real Business Results
With Twitter's usage numbers ballooning and its recent announcement of brand pages, interactive marketers are paying attention. Recognizing its potential across the marketing mix, many have already...

Marketing Gets Customized For Social, Local, Mobile, Multiscreen Consumers
Social is not a channel, and mobile goes beyond the smartphone. In 2012, marketers will get this concept and realize that their customer is truly "always on." The customer of 2012 expects customized,...
Location-Based Social Networking, Though Stagnant Now, Is Poised To Grow
Geosocial applications — also known as location-based social networks — hold potential for interactive marketers: They can help increase in-store visits, your brand's visibility, and...
Start Piloting Now To Be Prepared To Benefit From Growing Consumer Use
The 2D bar code is a promising mobile marketing tactic: It provides marketers a quick way to bridge the offline-online gap and enhance consumer engagement with their target audience anytime, anywhere...
What To Expect For The Health Of Your Community
Interactive marketers in charge of branded communities need to be able to benchmark goals and set expectations for the success of their programs. However, the benchmarks being observed are typically...
Choose A Social Marketing Management Vendor Focused On The Specific Needs Of The Financial Industry
Clearer compliance regulations are making financial services (FS) marketers more confident about entering the social channel and growing their existing presences — but the burden remains on...
ForecastView Spreadsheet
Spending by companies on mobile marketing segmented by mobile advertising and search. Includes data on mobile Internet users and spending by company size.
Almost half of interactive marketers tell us they're trying to create brand awareness — but few know how to measure brand impact online. Interactive marketers must use tried-and-true survey...
The explosive growth of smartphones has created an opportunity for mobile display that marketers are beginning to realize. But confusion in the vendor landscape has led marketers to go straight to...
The personal nature of mobile devices creates a deeper, more-connected bond between marketer and consumer, which requires a new approach to traditional marketing objectives. Marketers looking to...
Social Marketing Management Vendor Landscape
As interactive marketers' social programs have become more mature, a breed of vendors has cropped up to help them manage their increasingly complex social presences. Social publishing platforms and...
The costs and timing of adding social functionality to your marketing initiatives can quickly add up as feature sets become more extensive and implementations become more complex. A variety of...
Display marketers are eager to launch mobile campaigns. But they face challenges such as audience fragmentation, a chaotic vendor landscape, and myriad new technologies and devices. In order to...
After a record year for mobile marketing spend and success, mobile has finally arrived as a legitimate marketing medium. In 2011, Forrester predicts that marketers will take the training wheels off...