If you think about how integral mobile phones have become in most of our lives, it’s really quite incredible. Most of us cannot live without our mobile phones. Whether it’s to keep in touch with family and friends, to use for work purposes, or whatever the purpose mobiles phones usage is continuing to rise at an unbelievable rate. The reality is, we use our phones for much more than talking these days. Many folks use their mobile devices for emailing, posting to Twitter and Facebook, sending texts, taking photos, etc.

As smart phones become even “smarter”, more prevalent, and more affordable, more and more folks will even rely on their mobiles to search the internet. Within the next year, it’s expected that more people will be browsing the internet with their mobiles than on their desktop computers. These incredible facts mean it’s never been easier or a better time to begin your mobile marketing campaigns. Ironically, most businesses aren’t taking advantage of the tools readily available such as SMS text messaging, App marketing, etc.

But, we hope to change that! We’re going to offer some tips on how you can use mobile marketing to get your message across to your target audience. Firstly, doing research into the best way to get your marketing message out there is the first step. Either hire a mobile expert or devise a plan to perform your marketing on your own. Keep track of CTR (click through rates) to see how effective your message may be and tweak and test until you achieve your goals. You want to be able to split test your methods (e.g. banner advertising) and evaluate your metrics to find what is working, and giving you a positive ROI, and what is not working thus costing you money.

SMS and MMS messaging is a great way to get your message to your customer. You sign up to a text messaging service where you can set up your text shortcode. A shortcode, also known as a vanity code, is assigned to your business and can take some time to get approved. Once you have this code, you can add it to your print media such as flyers, business cards, leaflets, etc.

An example of how to use this shortcode would be…let’s say you run a dog grooming business. You could hire a teenager to pass out flyers in your neighborhood where on the flyer you ask folks to send you a text message using your specific shortcode. That shortcode might be something like DOGGY. Once they send in their text with DOGGY they are effectively on your “list” of prospects. A day or two later, you can send a text message that might say “Get a FREE flea dip for your beloved dog if you book a grooming session before this Friday”. Obviously, your prospects woudln’t have texted the shortcode if they weren’t dog owners or interested in your dog grooming business.

You can test different flyers to see if any particular message is obtaining more prospects. Once they have “opted in” to your business (via the shortcode) you can now send messages to their mobile whenever you have a special on offer. The important thing to remember is to take advantage of today’s mobile technology, understand your prospects, and test everything to obtain the highest ROI possible.