Technology Toolkit

With millions of people owning their own cellular phone, and with the simplest units capable of using many of the latest multi-media technologies, mobile marketing has become an important, if not integral, part of campaigns.

Some mobile marketing campaigns try to use the emergence of the cellular phone as a major Internet “portal” by developing tools and techniques to maximize this shift of Web denizens from the browser to one’s mobile handheld unit. Especially with the emergence of smartphones like the iPhone and its competitors, even mobile marketers can’t help but get caught up in the hype.

But before the smartphone, before Flash content and Internet via Wireless Access Protocol, before Bluetooth, and even before colored screens and digital sound, the modern cellular phone as we know it has one common feature: short message sending (SMS), or texting.

Mobile marketing, SMS style is perhaps one of the oldest means of promotion via the cellular phone. At its most basic, you can type in a message worth 160 characters and send it to every single person in your phone’s address book. Today, software exists that allows one to make a message not limited by 160 characters (and most phones, even the simplest ones, can accept SMS past the 160-character limit), and easily send it to a large number of recipients.

Whether you do mobile marketing, SMS style, through a more manual technique or utilize the latest software to do so, the principles and the advantages remain the same.

Because the SMS feature is almost an afterthought among today’s cellular phones, you can be assured that even the simplest unit being sold by the most obscure phone company will be able to send and receive text messages. The sheer ubiquity of the SMS feature means that anyone with a cellular phone is, indeed, part of your target market. You can reach everyone, so long as they have a mobile phone.

Another advantage of mobile marketing SMS style is that it is relatively cheap, perhaps the cheapest among the many technologies available to cellular phone-based marketing today. At its most basic, you just need an SMS-capable phone and lots of patience and finger-stamina. Even the specialized software that greatly eases SMS-based marketing comes relatively cheap, and can be used by most anyone after a few sessions of training. On the other hand, you need a person familar with the programming language of applets to make full use of smartphones in your mobile campaign targeting such units.

Mobile marketing SMS style also takes advantage of an almost-instinctive reflex among cellular phone users. When one’s unit sounds off with that familiar tone that says someone has just texted you, your first reaction would be to pick up your phone and look at it.

The problem with most forms of advertising and marketing mediums is that viewers have the option not to look at or hear your message. The remote control and digital TV allows us to channel surf when its time to hear a word from the sponsors. Readers can just skip pages with ads on newspapers or throw away that expensively-made supplement insert. Radio listeners can turn the knob, and their digital cousins can just download podcasts and music, listening to these in their own, private players sans the advertising. Internet surfers can choose not to click on your banners, skip pop-up or intervening ads, or just configure their browsers to screen out your advertising entirely.

On the other hand, answering that SMS-received tone, though, by reaching out for the cellular phone and looking at the message is almost instinctive. The person can choose to delete your message or even disregard it totally but at least he or she has seen it. Which is more than you can say for a TV commercial or print ad.

Mobile marketing, SMS style might be using the oldest trick in the cellular phone to get your message across. But just as the top executives of the leading advertising agencies will tell you that the most effective advertising tool is still word-of-mouth, texting is still one of the most effective marketing and advertising tools available for the mobile marketer, even in a new world of applets and 3G features.

One of the hottest tools being used by marketers and advertisers today is the mobile marketing campaign. This is basically using cellular phones as part of, or central to, their marketing strategy for promoting a product, service or event.

The use of the mobile phone as an integral, if not the important, part of a marketing or advertising campaign is because of the sheer ubiquity of the gadget. In 1990, there were 12.4 million subscribers and users of cellular phones worldwide. By 2009, or around two decades since, that number has balloned to 4.9 billion, or an increase of 370 times. Cellular phone users also cover the full spectrum of socio-economic classes. Persons from the highest levels of society to the lowest strata use cellular phones.

Of course, mobile phone marketing is a relatively new phenomenon. Add to this the fact that phones are rapidly evolving both in terms of hardware and software, changing the way units, and thus their users, receive and use information, and everything becomes a little bit more complicated for the average businessman.

Just as advertising companies and marketing firms help businesses make the most of media and promotional tools and techniques, mobile marketing companies have stepped up to give people interested in using mobile marketing campaigns to help sell their products and services a clear view of how the rapidly-expanding and emerging world of mobile phones can increase sales and awareness.

Mobile marketing companies offer a variety of services to the interested businessman that aim to maximize the use of the mobile phone in a marketing or advertising campaign. One of the most common services involve campaigns using the most basic cellular phone utility: short message sending (SMS), or texting, as most people call it. Although some might say that SMS campaigning is just about sending a message around 160 characters long to a certain number of people, mobile marketing companies can help you make an SMS campaign that makes effective use of texting, whether through carefully-crafted texts or highly-strategic targeting of recipients.

Another service mobile marketing companies offer makes use of the technological gems found in even some cheap phones in the market. The creation of Flash content for mobile phones, or even games, that are part of a mobile marketing campaign are just some of the services mobile marketing companies can do to make use of these features and build up awareness for your product, service or event.

The emergence of the cellular phone as a major channel for accessing the Internet has also led to the development of Web content suited especially for this medium. Not all units have the capability to view websites in the same quality and manner as with your favorite browser, and forcing viewers to do so can lead to unsatisfactory browsing experiences. Mobile marketing companies can provide the expertise needed to convert your websites and Web-based applications for effective cellular phone access.

Finally, the phenomenal growth of smartphones like Apple’s iPhone or Samsung’s Android-equipped units has opened up a whole new world of mediums through applets. Mobile marketing companies can provide the people and tools that will allow your business or organization to make full use of this new and rapidly-expanding world as a part of an effective marketing campaign.

With the rise of the cellphone as a medium in which businesses can reach consumers comes the emergence of new ways in which to influence a market potentially millions-strong. Mobile marketing companies will make sure that you can remain competitive in a cellular world by helping you make the most of the technologies and techniques coming to the fore with the explosion of this new medium.

With the explosion of cellular phone penetration in the last decade or two, whole markets and ways to reach them have opened up. Mobile marketing campaigns, whether stand-alone or as components of a larger marketing strategy, have made use of this very large demographic and the relative ease in reaching them to increase the promotion and exposure of products and services.

One of the most common techniques in mobile marketing campaigns is to entice or offer to customers a number or code that they can use as part of a product promotion. These numbers and/or codes could either be part of a contest or raffle, or a means to get freebies or other special offers connected with the product being sold or service being offered.

An example of this was concerning the sponsorship of Wimbeldon by American Express. The credit card service provider conducted a contest where members of the audience could guess at the winners of next day’s game. People who participated in the contest were noted as being more likely to attend the fourteen days of the whole event. Also, American Express was able to get a good number of card applications due to their campaign.

Another way in which mobile marketing campaigns take form is when the cellular phone becomes one of the primary tools for the product, service or even event. The highly successful American Idol uses votes sent via the SMS function of mobile phones as part of its way of determining which of the contestants wins or loses. Deal or No Deal is another show where viewers can participate in the contest by texting in their guesses for the Lucky Case Game.

Men’s magazines like FHM also use mobile marketing campaigns to promote readership by offering content for cellular phones like wallpapers and ringtones. Text votes are also used for contests, like the 100 Sexiest Women.

The effectiveness and attractiveness of mobile marketing campaigns is in the fact that the cellular phone is quite common in today’s world. Most everyone has a mobile phone, and they go everywhere with it. This allows marketers and advertisers to reach target markets even if they aren’t in front of a TV screen or computer monitor or flipping through pages of a newspaper.

Cellular phones also allow for a good degree of interactivity with the event mobile marketing campaigns promote or support. Nike put up a large, interactive billboard in Times Square where people can text in their custom shoe designs, getting a free pair of Nike IDs. Although only 3,000 pairs of shoes were given out by Nike, industry analysts say that people were probably more interested and excited to see their designs displayed on the billboard than actually getting one of the free pairs of shoes.

Aside from freebies and interactivity, mobile marketing campaigns also use cellular phones to quickly and effectively inform its customers and/or target market about the latest developments in the product, service or event the campaign is supporting. People subscribed to the campaign can receive updates on release dates for the new product, or where and when the next sale is happening. It can also help foster brand loyalty as subscribers can be offered with advanced information on new products and services alongside special offers to those enrolled in the campaign’s mobile service.

In the old days of marketing and advertising, part of the problem has always been about how to effectively reach one’s target market. Today, with the prevalence of the cellular phone, mobile marketing campaigns can give marketers and advertisers that channel in which to reach out to those they need to in a quick and effective manner.

The First Generation (1G) of wireless communication is an analog type of technology wherein the signals are modulated to higher frequency to transmit signal from a mobile device to another via base station. Different standards were developed in different regions, to name a few – AMPS (Advanced Mobile Phone System) in US, NMT (Nordic Mobile Telephone) in Eastern Europe, TACS (Total Access Communications System) in United Kingdom.

But the golden era of wireless mobile application development started in the year 1980’s, from which the technology GSM (General System for Mobile Communications), a European standard, first launched and invaded the marketplace. This 2nd Generation (2G) digital communication system has brought about the significant milestone in advanced technology, making longer distance communication possible and easier to use. Both cellular equipment vendors and telecommunications operators benefitted with the increasing demands from mobile users.

In GSM, the exchange of voice calls and SMS (Short Messaging System) through a portable or mobile device became widely used internationally. Its real-time and reliable transfer of information captured the attention of many users, that even the cost of services, where voice calls were charged per minute and SMS per message sent, and the hardware requirements, such as SIM card and mobile phone, are negligible for the consumers longing for efficient and reliable communication technology. As a result of further study, GPRS (General Packet Radio Service) came known in 1990’s. This is the beginning of data or internet connectivity via wireless communication. As consumers became enticed to accessing their emails, browsing websites and chatting using their phone, a greater challenge was formed amongst the service providers – the increase in bit rates and throughput for faster transfer of data. From this EDGE, or known as Enhanced Data Rate for Global Evolution, is introduced. With this development, the cellular vendors were also required to cope up with the demands and have to parallel the efforts of creating mobile phones compatible with these technologies. The handheld devices are designed to adapt the services from voice call, to sending text, to downloading data and surfing the internet with user-friendly interfaces.

It is in summer of the year 2000 where the specification work on wireless technology was assigned to the international group 3GPP (3G Partnership Program), which will be responsible in research and application of the evolving 3rd Generation (3G) wireless technology – UMTS (Universal Mobile Telecommunication System). This offers a new circuit-switched service called video calling and improved data rate up to 384kbps. Not far from the launch of 3G, HSDPA (High Speed Download Packet Access) came into the scene, offering up to 14.4Mbps data rate for mobile subscribers.

Within these last two decades, the growth of mobile application development continuously changes and became so widespread that it affects the lifestyle of most people, in any country regardless of age and social group. The services of wireless technologies paved unlimited demands from the mobile users. Because of this, another telecommunication technique called WiMax or Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access is being rolled out by operators in some countries in Asia and US. Not as simple as it sounds, this technology offers that in a few years, the delivery of Internet access throughout the globe without any wires is possible, not only to mobile phones but also to portable computers, any handheld devices and every living room.

For business owners, obtaining an effective marketing approach and applying it to the operations of their business is a very viable step towards success. An effective approach towards marketing allows every business owner to gain profitability which is the common measure of success for them. If you are among those business owners who desire to be totally successful in the field of business, then mobile internet marketing can be perfect for you. This marketing approach has made the lives of many business owners a bit easier and more convenient. With the help of this specific marketing approach, you do not need to consume a substantial amount of your time getting one job finished before you can go to the next. Through this approach, you can do a lot of marketing tasks all at the same time without sacrificing each of the task’s results. All it takes is to get your mobile phones and inform the public about your business existence through a single text message.

For a lot of business owners, mobile internet marketing has become an instrument that makes their business career even more enjoyable and fun. The fact that they are able to personally connect with the public and get immediate responses from their target audience when they market their products is something that most business owners tend to enjoy. As compared to laptop and desktop internet, many vie for the efficiency of mobile internet so it could be wise if you decide to try it out. You can anticipate an even easier access to the public plus you are given the chance to improvise the many applications in your mobile phone through the installation of compatible widgets to it. These improvisations can be creatively done by you in accordance to what your target audience is most likely to enjoy and what specific applications would draw them closer to your business. If you have enough funds, you may choose to pay for expert programmers for the purpose of letting them build a more customized application for your mobile phone. If you are on a budget, then you can rely on your creative skills as designing one of your own is proven by a lot of business owners to be an easy task. You may also choose to try downloading some of the many available ready-made applications online. Your choice will still be based on your own preferred designs and graphics.

Mobile internet marketing has really changed the lives of most business owners at present. In terms of profitability and in grabbing the attention of the public or your specific target market, you can expect mobile internet marketing to help you all throughout. Improved productivity may also be anticipated as you are given the chance to do different tasks all at the same time. An even closer bond to the public or to your specific target audience may also be achieved due to the fact that this marketing approach tends to be more personalized. Through this, success for your business can be greatly expected and you are guaranteed that you will obtain an edge despite the fierce competition.