Big Business Has Discovered Mobile Advertising

Marketing to customers via mobile phones has come on in leaps and bounds. Finally the mainstream marketers who promote the largest firms in the world have cottoned onto mobile marketing, which is a sure sign that it has come of age. The development of Short Message Service SMS technology, or text messaging as the technique is more commonly known, has advanced dramatically. This has allowed SMS to dovetail with other computerized technology and making test messages easily distributed and monitored. SMS communications now form part of most major marketing drives.

Mobile marketing had its origins early this century in Europe where businesses started to build lists of mobile phone numbers and send text plugs to offer various products. The service was often abused. This has since become better controlled and refined. Certain protocols are in place in most of the worlds leading economies to limit the flood of text messages to private mobile phones.

It is true to say that SMS has entered the mainstream as an advertising medium because of the flexibility it offers to advertisers. While email goes out over the public internet, mobile text messages are distributed via a wireless service. This has given advertisers who are using the system the opportunity to initiate ways to track of the sort of advertisements that are going out over their networks. Also there are several agencies concerned with mobile marketing. Two of these are the Interactive Advertising Bureau and the Mobile Marketing Association. MMA. Part of their task has been to set parameters for the industry.

In the beginning mobile marketing was negatively received by the media. This was due to its vulnerability to spam text messages. Admittedly many advertisers blemished the name of the medium. They employed the classic spam techniques, such as buying lists of mobile numbers and sending unwanted messages to tens of thousands of mobile phones. Once regulatory guidelines were put in place, however, mobile marketing matured and became popular with advertisers and acceptable to mobile phone owners. According to the experts, over 100 million SMSs marketing various products are sent to mobiles every month.

Mobile marketing has reached maturity over the past few years. The main reason has been that businesses are devoting a large portion of their direct advertising budgets to this form of advertising. Because companies regard mobile texting as a valuable investment, they are keen not to see the system abused. An important reason for businesses using mobile marketing is that customers are increasingly asked permission to have SMS sent to their phones.

Mobile operators are even putting in place double opt in measures so that consumers are very sure they want to receive text messages. In addition, consumers are able to opt out of the service whenever they wish by SMSing the word STOP to the sender of the message. Advertisers and mobile operators now follow the guidelines that are present in the MMA Consumer Best Practices Guidelines. All mobile marketers in the US are obliged to comply with these guidelines.

How To Profit From The Advertising Done By Other Businesses

Inside other businesses right in your locality are people, and those people could benefit from the goods and services you offer. In other words, business people are customers too, and what makes them so easy to reach is that businesses are continually handing out their contact details. Take advantage of this by picking up prospects from advertising information.
This is a great way to expand your prospect base which, as all serious business marketers know, is the basis of an effective marketing effort and finally their sales success. Sales are based on the percentage of successful prospects, so it is a numbers game. The more prospects you have the greater the chances of being able to set up an appointment to meet with them and gain their business.
Ideally you should computerize your prospects’ names and contact details in a contact management program on your computer, but if you do not have access to a computer yet you can create a manual card file using plain 3” x 5” index cards. You could also use a ledger. One way or another you are going to have to keep control of the information you will gather because there is plenty of it out there.
Here is a good way to go about getting the information you need from the advertising efforts of other businesses:

1. Know what you are looking for.
   You will be looking out for the name of the business, the full address including the zip code, the telephone number and the names of the owner, management and staff with their titles.



2. Keep a handle on the leads gathering process.
   You will be amazed at the number of business leads there are out there. Get a notebook or a recorder or just use your laptop to record all the details while you are on the road. You can transfer the information to a contact management system later.



3. Use the yellow pages and other business directories.
   When you have a spare couple of hours visit your local library and use either Contacts Influential, Inside Contacts or any other printed directory. Then create leads using the geographical section (by zip code) or the SIC (Standard Industry Code) Section. Where the businesses are grouped together by type e.g. electricians, undertakers, etc.



4. Make the most of the local newspapers.
   Newspapers are just packed with leads waiting to be cherry-picked. In addition, you can learn a lot about your industry from the newspapers. Take note of what other businesses in your niche are advertising and what they are advertising. Read the business section for announcements of new businesses that may be targeted to your niche.



5. Make a point of picking up every free business directory you can find.
   There are plenty of free papers, flyers, brochures and local businesses directory available free on stands outside of frequently visited businesses, like real estate offices and restaurants. These are often well-targeted e.g. senior citizens, sportsmen, etc. so an appropriate free advertising sheet could be just stacked with potential leads.



6. There is gold in your junk mail!
   Even businesses who dump junk mail in your mailbox or inbox could be a prospect for your business. Keep adding them to the database.



7. Here are many more sources of potential contacts.
   Magazines, radio ads, junk emails, local TV advertising, chamber of commerce directories, business directories, direct mail coupons, billboards, church bulletins, business cards displayed in supermarkets and restaurants, trade show brochures and mobile advertising units



8. Differentiate your leads from your contacts.
   You might want to have one database for your leads or potential contacts and another for those that you have already contacted and are one their way to being customers, or are already your clients. This is a good way to get plenty of targeted communication going with prospective and existing customers.



9. Business-to-business cold calls can be a pain in the neck.
   Don’t call a restaurant during the peak times like breakfast, lunch or dinner. If you aren’t sure of the schedule of the business you are contacting at least be sensitive. Ask the person who answers the phone when the best time would be to call your prospects.

Advertise and Market to Students for Better Returns

Surveys conducted recently show that spending by students amounted to more than $145 billion this year and nearly $30 billion of that was discretionary spending. What is more, student spending is increasing. Baby boomers’ children and their children are, or will be in, an institution of tertiary education in the next ten or twenty years.


College attendance in America is growing more significant. The percentage of college students now stands at the highest ever and this tendency is not diminishing at all. For all these reasons it is a good idea for marketing professionals, or anyone with a business, to increase their marketing efforts where students are concerned.


As mentioned in the introduction, student spending will be more than $145 billion this year. Student spending has never been this high. This amounts to about $14 000 per person. If any company advertised to that market and converted their input costs to just one thousandth of a percent (0.001%) that would total $1,450,000. If only half of this was achieved ($750 000) or even a quarter ($362 500) – well, these are still big figures.


Another good reason to look at marketing to students is the importance of word of mouth advertising in today’s commercial environment. Consider the performance of MySpace and Facebook. Neither of these companies relied on expensive marketing campaigns to build their business. They did it by offering a service that met need and were appreciated. Once word got out, these businesses simply grew organically and exponentially. These two website are the two most commonly visited by young adults. These massive businesses were built purely on word-of-mouth reputation.


Never forget that students are easily influenced by their peers and tend to go with the crowd when making purchases or deciding on which route to take. The perception might be that students are busy with classes and homework but in reality they have tons of free time where they mix with friends. This means plenty of opportunity for talking about your product.
Probably the most important justification for advertising to students is to build brand loyalty. Remember that students are in school to get an education which will make them higher earners who will be at the top of the heap. These are the kind of people you want to take your brand into the future. After selling to them successfully as students, students stand to become customers for life.


In addition, after the initial sales have been made and the prospective customer as a student has been converted into an existing customer, the company stands to gain years of free word-of-mouth advertising from this important customer.The bottom line is that there is literally a wealth of positive results that can result from a marketing initiative focusing on students. It is advisable for marketers to research this market segment and conduct a test in a segment of that. A good place to begin investigating this marketing is www.campuspitch.com. Here campuses can be researched depending on a company’s target customer profile. The importance of marketing to students can barely be over-emphasized. Watch this become the big new marketing trend.