Unless you really read no business magazines or watch no news, you are probably aware of the impact that cell phone use is making on advertising. Mobile advertising and marketing are the newest avenues of reaching your customers. 5 billion people own cell phones and this year about 1 billion of those will have some “smart” features (interactive with applications, web browsing, email along with the usual text and phone capabilities). Smart phones allow for interacting with current and potential customers in a way that is much more personalized and specific than ever before.

As with online advertising, there are several modes of message delivery via mobile advertising. Banner advertising, text messaging, application creation and advertising based on real-time location are all available. You can do a banner ad for an existing application, but, like banner ads on web pages, these tend to be stagnant and easily ignored. Instead I prefer the last three because they offer more opportunities for targeted relationship marketing.

Text messaging (aka SMS) or multi-media messaging (MMS-includes video, audio or images) are not terribly different than email marketing campaigns. You start collecting cell phone numbers (existing customers, add it to your newsletter sign up information that you collect, put out physical sign up cards in the store) and send your first text message, generally a promotion, (via a mobile advertising service) which allows people to opt-in or out of receiving further text messages from you. However, you can also use this as a way to gather more email addresses by offering something in exchange for that (“text your email address to this number for a one-day only special coupon!”).

You can also have an application created for a smart phone. While Apple’s iPhone had dominated the market, applications are being developed now even more quickly for the Google Droid series. Not every business model lends itself to needing an app (according to the Wall Street Journal, a modest application runs about $2000) so be sure it is something a customer would use. Some examples of small business applications include Zippo’s “lighter” app (for that real concert encore experience for 99 cents), outdoor adventure company REI offers a free snow report app, and Whole Foods Market’s app provides recipe searches (based on diet or ingredient) which allows you to build a shopping list.

Finally, location positioning and augmented reality allow you to reach out to customers in a real-time, location based way. Imagine that you are a retailer with a small single store. If you have a mobile phone list, you can identify when a customer is near your store and send them a coupon or notify them of an existing promotion right at the moment that they are close by. If combined with an application that keeps track of their previous purchases, you can remind them it is time for post-it notes which just happen to be on sale with coupon code POSTITSALE.

All of these marketing methods will be through a mobile advertising service and costs and service offerings will vary by provider. I highly recommend reviewing the materials on the Mobile Marketing Association website for best practices, case studies and a thorough education in mobile marketing. Before signing up with a company, be sure you review what they’ve already done for other clients.

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Photo courtesy Opusbei via Creative Commons license