The deadline for the Effective Mobile Marketing Awards is just over three weeks away. Last year, the Awards attracted over 160 entries, and we are looking to surpass that figure this year. There is no fee to enter, and we welcome entries from all over the world. Last year, more than 30 countries were represented in the Awards, with executives flying in from the US, India and Australia, among other placed.

There are three app categories: Most Effective Mobile Application – b2c; Most Effective Mobile Application – b2b; and Most Effective Tablet Application. Last year, Debenhams took the award for Most Effective b2c Application for its transactional iPhone, Android and Nokia app, created with the help of the Debenhams Design Team – an online panel of over 15,000 customers. The app enables customers to watch Debenhams TV content, share Wish or Gift Lists with friends and family, and check prices using a barcode scanner. In its first six months, the iPhone version of the app achieved over 500,000 downloads, and generated over £1.5m in sales, across a total of 2.4m shopping sessions.

The Most Effective b2b App category was won by Auto Trader for its Dealer Portal Mobile iPhone App. The app allows car dealers to set up and manage ads for their stock via their iPhone. As well as allowing dealers to take photos and edit ads on the move, the app also includes a Profit Indicator that allows dealers to understand the margin they’d make on a given car, and gives a suggested price on stock before they purchase. This is based on real-time, accurate, market-based intelligence, reducing the risk associated with purchase, and increasing the likelihood of achieving the best profit.

And BSkyB took the award for Most Effective Tablet Application with its Sky News app for the iPad. This great-looking app is centred around a timeline that’s updates as the day’s news unfolds, and leverages Sky’s extensive video content.

That was all last year, this is now. If you have developed a great app that you think is worthy of an award, head for the Awards website now to download the Entry Form. Remember, there’s no entry fee, and you can enter as many times as you have great apps. Over to you.