Mobile Marketing In The Near Future

Not to my surprise, I find mobile marketing has both a digital and traditional definition. The digital definition is as one would expect, marketing your business message through mobile devices. In the traditional definition there are moving billboards that are associated with mobile marketing. We are going to be talking about mobile devices.

The mobile industry certainly has grown quickly the past three years. The iPhone coming to market was only the beginning. It didnt take long for mobile applications to make these devices more useful to the consumer. With the flood of mobile applications consumers were able to find many different uses for their mobile device. Games and Entertainment were only the beginning. More useful applications like tools, utilities and resources also found their way to the mobile device.

As of December 2009 there were 285,610,580 mobile devices in the United States against a population of 308,505,000. Basically 91% of the population has a mobile device. Feel free to look at the Wikipedia article at for more statistics worldwide.

With 91% of the U.S. population having a mobile device, and these devices having considerable capabilities, it is undoubtedly the next significant source of information for consumers and businesses alike. Using it as a phone is only the beginning. Email, Games, Entertainment, Texting, Instant Messaging, Browsing, Photos, Camera, Calculator, Calendar, Maps, Voice Recognition, News, Banking, Weather, Finance, Social Communities, and Radio are only a small fraction of what mobile devices are used for. Their capabilities will continue to grow as this mini-computer will have more use in our daily lives.

As an Internet and digital marketing agency were going to focus on how a business can use mobile marketing. Well focus on four specific areas and describe a starting point and a planned progression for the next few years. Each area has many details and this information is designed to be in summary. Future articles will specifically discuss each section separately.

Messaging Services

This is known as texting and includes SMS Texting (Short Message Service) as well as MMS (Multimedia Message Service). For a business to tap into this marketing tool you have to begin by getting permission from prospects and customers to send them SMS or MMS messages. Begin by seeking out a service that provides SMS and/or MMS services. You will be assigned a text number that customers can send a subscription notice to. You can add this feature into your website, email marketing or display in your business to promote how prospects and clients can get alerts from you by SMS or MMS. Because it will take time to build up subscribers you will want to start this sooner rather than later.

Mobile Websites

We have had discussions with clients in which they felt as long as their website was showing on a mobile browser then they had a mobile website. Not the case. A website that was developed specifically for a standard computer or laptop monitor does not mean you have a mobile version of your website. On a mobile version of a business website a user will not need to zoom in or out or pan left or right when viewing your website. The website will be a lite version of your primary website with specific call to actions that are useful to the users visiting your mobile website. A good example is Delta Airlines. Go to their website on a standard computer. Then go to their website using a mobile devices browser. You will see two very different websites. As a business you will want to budget and get a mobile version of your website as one of your very next steps.

Mobile Applications

At some point every business will have a mobile application and its even possible that mobile applications will diminish the need for domain names. Mobile applications can be useful as a tool for your customers or you may decide to have an application for branding purposes that is a simple game. There are certainly many possibilities for mobile applications and you will need to consult with a marketing firm to decide how to best utilize mobile applications. Mobile application development budgets vary dependent upon creative, interface functionality, database use and Internet streaming.

Mobile Advertising

Text advertising like Google adwords and banner advertising is available direct to mobile devices. The difference is how theyre delivered. For example banner ads will appear in free mobile applications and when the application is used at the bottom. You can push your mobile banner ads through mobile advertising networks like AdMob (acquired by Google) and Quattro (acquired by Apple). Development of your mobile ads requires a different approach since there is limited physical dimensions of your message.

By utilizing all four mobile marketing components for your marketing plan over the next couple of years you will be able to tap into a new marketing tool that happens to be well suited for local business marketing. Waiting for two years to pass and then deciding to plan and adopt this technology is probably the wrong answer. You need to incorporate this process now and build it into your business marketing process otherwise you will be left behind.

Certainly your time resources are limited and Geo-Marketing Services, of which Mobile marketing is a part of, are provided by SmartFinds Internet Marketing. You will find this to be of great benefit to your time resources and let the experts of over 15 years Internet marketing experience help you use these geo-marketing tools properly to generate revenue with positive customer experiences.

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Location & Mobile Search Marketing Will Evolve

Are you are still applying the same exact SEO tactics that you did a few years back? Have you evolved into what is happening now in the search marketing space? If you havent you could be shooting yourself in the foot with your online marketing approach. This is a very fast moving industry that requires a great deal of constant education. I wont compare it to the education level needed to consistently be a good doctor but there is a fair amount of information that needs to be digested at almost all times to stay on top of the internet trends. Savvy start-ups are springing to action with great force almost every single day. Some of these new technology start-ups are changing the way that people communicate online and if you dont keep up with it you could fall behind your competition.

The pace of change is much like a runaway locomotive train and consumers along with businesses are trying to simply grab a hold and stay on. The reason why old SEO tactics do not work like they used to is because consumers are starting to act and purchase on trust rather than emotion. They need to see your business in many different areas before they decided to contact you for any reason.

Lets take a look at some location and mobile search marketing areas that I think we will see strong growth online in the very near future:

1. Location Based Search Marketing: Foursqaure and Gowalla have taken what Twitter does and twisted and tweaked it to remove the spammy business side that tends to infiltrate the website now. Your phone understands where you are and shows you a list of places surrounding your immediate location. You can then check in to those places to let others know you are there and how you feel about it. In this process you receive badges for frequency of check-ins. Recently Facebook and Twitter both have already started implementing their own location based features. This is obviously a direction where things are starting to head. Location based marketing is really just getting started but it will eventually be an integral part of any online marketing campaign.

2. Mobile Phone Applications: Search engines are not just on desktop computers and laptops anymore. They now follow people around in their pockets on their mobile phones. The mobile app industry is absolutely exploding and more and more users are shifting away from looking up a business on their mobile website and moving to just downloading a mobile app version for that specific business. It makes things much easier for the user and more efficient as well. As devices get stronger and more powerful people are going to rely on their hand held devices even more making it very important that all business get involved with the online mobile space sooner than later.

3. Trust Trumps All: Technology is growing at such a rapid pace that many of us dont really have the time to keep up with everything going on around us. We are all in an era that is under a heavy content overload. Everywhere you turn online you see more news, more information and more ads. Consumers are trying to really bob and weave to avoid the junk that is being thrown at them everyday. Trust is going to drive purchases in the future. Online trust is going to have a very heavy decision factor for many companies and individuals looking to make a purchase online. With so many new websites and businesses making their way into search results the ability to really brand yourself and stand out from the crowd is going to be vital in the very near future. No more spammy SEO techniques for just ranking. You seriously have to brand your business online the right way to grow and prosper.

The search engine marketing space is changing every day. New unfathomable technologies creep up and infiltrate our communities on a regular basis creating brand new platforms for everyone to jump on and be part of. This is not going to slow down and applying SEO techniques from years past is not going to prepare you for the future. The future of search is happening right now. We can see the industry going through the changes already which means that businesses have to go through the changes as well.

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