I wasn’t really sure how to go about writing this article. Mobile Marketing is definitely the latest buzz to hit the Internet. The truth is it has been around for a few years, and for those that love technology it’s nothing new. What really kicked my mind into overdrive is when I saw a popular television show which using SMS as a voting system. In order for you to get the full grasp of Mobile Marketing you first need to have at least a basic understanding of how SMS works. If you already understand SMS just keep reading, I don’t want anyone to be left behind.

I guess the best place to start is the beginning, SMS stands for “Short Messaging Service”. To break it down into laymen’s terms it means “text messaging”. Everywhere you look you see the ads that say: “Text the word seobully to 12345.” The end user is charged approximately $2.00 for using this service.  The question that you should be asking yourself is who get’s the two bucks or whatever fee is being charged. Your probably guessing the cellphone service provider. If that’s your guess well your WRONG! A portion of it goes to the SMS provider and part goes to the advertiser.

At first glance Mobile Marketing may not sound like a big deal, until you begin running the numbers. On average you could launch a campaign and receive a 60/40 split that could go either way depending on what it is your promoting. Let’s take a real life example and plug in the numbers. American Idol was the first television show that I know of that used SMS as a means to generate additional revenue on top of what they were already getting. They also had a 50/50 deal in place with the service provider. When it came time to place your vote the viewers where told that they could participate by sending a text message and it only cost $2.00. The last episode of American Idol last year received nearly 100 million votes, all done via SMS. That means in the time it took to air one episode AI made $100,000,000.00.

Ok… Ok… I know your thinking hey Tim… That example although realistic, isn’t realistic for me. My goal was to just show you the potential revenue from an actual SMS campaign. Now that I have the wheels turning in your head, I want to discuss some of the techniques that are currently being used as well as some other techniques that are currently coming down the pipeline. Don’t worry by the end of this article I will gift wrap everything for you nice and neat and show you how you can put together your very own marketing campaign and get your business in front of some of the 280 million cell phones in the United States.

Let’s discuss the magic word of the day… VIDEO! To be more specific I’m talking about video on your cell phone. Do you watch video on your cell phone? According to the recent statistics released by Nielson (this is the company that rates television viewers), 37% of iPhone users watch videos on their phone. Most advertisers that use videos and SMS on the iPhone have reported a 58% turnaround. Looking at it from a business perspective, the question is does that 58% equate to money in the advertisers pocket? Let me put it this way… Cell phone video campaigns have been increasing in popularity around the world. The next question is how do you get your video on to the cell phones of your target audience? There are several ways to accomplish this task but the easiest by far is to shoot and edit your own personal or business profile video and put it on your website (truth be told you should have done this already). Once you have your video up on your site, post it to Facebook, YouTube, and any other social site that you can post it to. Your video can now be played by cell phones that support online video.

If you follow the above actions that will get your video on the web, but you still won’t have your video on any cell phones. Calm down… Calm down… The answer to the big questions are coming up. I can’t just give you all of this mind blowing information in any old order. There is a method to this madness and you must follow it step-by-step in order to get  the best result possible.

The main word that you want to focus on is (drum roll please…) Apps! Yep that’s right applications. If by some snowball chance is hell your not familiar with cell phone apps, then your probably still using dial up to access the internet, and wearing one of those old school digital watches with the bright red numbers on it.

Although the iPhone is the most popular platform for cell phone apps, other cell phones are starting to step up to the plate, and I think it is fear to say that the number of phones that can run these little apps will continue to grow.

There are numerous ways to align your business with an app. As I was writing this article I did a quick search online and a large number of app development companies will allow you to sponsor an app. The way it works is pretty straight forward, the app is downloaded, the creator of the app makes money from the sale, you generate leads, which converts to sales from the constant placement of your business every time some one runs the app.

As you already know (or at least you should know) the first rule of launching a campaign is to have some sort of tracking in place. There are already technology in place that will allow the app developer to track direct click through information.

All of this leads us to yet another question… How do you get your foot in the door with these app companies. Just go to iTunes they have apps for everything under the sun. Lets say that you are selling your grandmothers recipe for BBQ sauce. You can approach any of these companies in your niche market and have them develop and app that will give the end user access to some awesome BBQ recipes, and of course your logo will be in front of the end user at all times. You could take your app a step further and allow the end user to upload their own recipes which will be added to your app automatically. The possibilities are virtually endless, you are only limited by your creativity.

If you are one those brave individuals who want to go it alone you can actually develop your own app. It is way easier than you may think. The program needed to build iPhone apps is for the most part a drag and drop program. If you don’t have a clue where to start there are tons of tutorials online at iTunes and you can even find some on Youtube.
Another option which comes with a twist of irony is to use Adobe Flash. The irony comes in because the iPhone is the only phone that doesn’t support Flash at this time. Rumor has it that the next generation of iPones will correct this problem. If you follow tech news you know that the head of Apple Steven Jobs has been going back and forth on whether or not the next generation of iPhones will support Flash or not. On a more positive note Flash currently supports cell phones ranging from LF, Sony-Ericsson, Nokia, NEC, along with several others. You will need a basic knowledge of Flash programing to create your own app using Flash, but one again there are tons of tutorials online that you can get your hands on for free.

At this point your head should be about to explode with ideas. I realize that there is so much to cover and I have tried to touch on the key points to get your creative juices to flowing.

Now we are facing the last question of this article that should be at the forefront of your brain… That question is, WHERE DO I START? That question is a little more difficult that it may appear on the surface. The reason being is because I don’t know your business model and there is no set rule that covers all business models. I can however recommend that you start by checking out some of the apps currently on the market, SMS campaigns, so forth and so on. As you begin doing your research your path will become clear wise one.

Click here to get started with your first Mobile ads Campaign