Coming To America

Keith Clark
Editor
Kclark@MobileMarketingNews.com
12-03-2007

In 2005, more than 170 million Americans had cell phones, making the potential for mobile marketing is nearly endless. As of April 2006, CTIA states that there are over 200 million wireless subscribers. And a recent poll of marketers found that nearly 20% of marketers have or are considering using short message service (SMS).

This marketing phenomenon first achieved popularity in Europe and is now catching on with North American marketers. And company executives and shareholders who want to see accountability for every dollar spent on a brand love the idea of reaching customers while they're out spending money.

The responses to mobile marketing are often better than traditional marketing efforts.

Mobile marketing is fast becoming the most direct, most interactive, widest-reaching and fastest-growing marketing medium in the world.

The most successful SMS campaigns are permission-based. Companies that use permission-based SMS are experiencing 4 percent or better response rates.

By requiring an opt-in from consumers before sending advertising to their cell phones, the companies can build a unique subscriber base for each product. Retailers can choose to sponsor messages only to women in a certain age group, who earn a certain income and live within a certain distance from the nearest store. In fact, the ways to segment a customer group are endless.

While SMS marketing can inexpensively notifies customers of an event or promotion when they're out and about, spending money. But the messages must be relevant or they won't elicit a reponse. This is especially important in the US, where message recipients typically pay to receive messages (usually 5 cents or 10 cents each).

More than 30 billion text messages were sent in the United States in 2004. Most were targeted to the 12-to34 year old age group. The whole youth culture, largely driven by their mobile connections, is a group that strongly influences or accounts for more than $800 billion in annual spending.

Current research indicates that younger wireless users are more receptive to mobile advertising than those ages 35 and over. College students responded most readily (79.7 percent), followed by teenagers (75.2 percent), males 18-34 (62.2 percent) and youth (58.1 percent).