Advertisement is one of the most important elements in ensuring that a brand preserves its markets and wins new ones over. As a result, firms are always in pursuit of better and economical as well as effective ways to advertise their goods and services, and one of the novel forms that has been found to fulfill this is mobile marketing. It is no wonder such statistics as a hundred million advertisement texts per month in Europe continue to show up, and the reason that more and more firms are taking up this form of marketing.

Also known as text message marketing, it is the sending of advertisements to consumers as text messages via their mobile devices. A mobile operator assigns a special keyword to a brand, and through a short code the contacts of prospective customers are availed to the brands for purposes of future marketing. The brand can then directly interact with its consumers and get feedbacks on its products through certain installed SMS software. One can also choose to undertake mobile email and multimedia advertisements as a form of mobile marketing.

Mobile marketing brings the advantage of targeted advertising, where an advertisement can be personalized for the specific consumer it is being sent out to. As a result the value of the return is greater as none of the advertisement goes to waste by falling on unintended individuals as would happen in traditional forms of marketing. Through mobile marketing a brand is assured that the advertisement is not intercepted or contorted as usually happens when using mediums such as billboards and posters that are liable to vandalism and malicious distortion. Another advantage is that it can also be used to conduct market surveys, polls and research without the costs usually associated with hiring agents to do this.

Initially, mobile marketing was associated with spamming which was as a matter of fact counteractive to advertising as it created apprehension among the recipients. This however, should be no reason for not practicing mobile marketing as regulations through mobile operators ensure that only the intended purpose of this form of advertising prevails. The customers are also given the provision of opting out at will through sending a message to the short code usually with the word “STOP”. Costs have also be been implicated as a reason of not taking up mobile marketing. This can be circumvented through pooling of several possibly small businesses to use one short-code and spread the monthly subscription costs amongst themselves. Moreover, the value of mobile marketing far outweighs the cost input, what with the advantages listed above?

Mobile marketing is one of the most recent and novel advertisement strategies alongside use of the internet, and it showcases how brands can take advantage of technology in use by consumers to market their products. It is therefore advisable for a business to consider using mobile marketing, or increase its use if it has already been put in place. This is not suggesting that it should replace traditional methods of advertising but instead that its budget should be increased in order to reap from its important advantages.

Omer Samiri is the author of this article on Mobile Marketing. Find more information on Sms Marketing here.