Types of Mobile Advertising Explained

Mobile phone advertising will soon become as critical to the small business owner’s marketing campaign as Internet marketing is now.  Over five in six homes have one or more mobile phones, and studies have shown that mobile phone advertising can be significantly more effective than online advertising, at times up to 3-5 times more effective.

But, many people find it hard to understand how mobile advertising works. The media tend to focus on how the big brands use mobile advertising, which may not be relevant to the small business owner.  Below you will find a short description of the two most prevalent types of mobile advertising today. 

Text or SMS Advertising. 

With this type of mobile phone advertising, your customers or prospects ask to get text message advertisements from you.  You ask them to text a special keyword that you have used in your other marketing efforts, and by doing so they “opt in” to your mobile advertising list.  There are third party vendors that can manage your text message advertising campaigns, the cost can be paid either on an as you go basis or through special pre-paid packages.   

Once a customer has opted into your mobile advertisements, you send phone ads to them through text messages (SMS).  While vendors are getting very creative with this form of advertising, coupons and notice of limited time discounts have already proven to be successful with text message mobile advertising.  Markets that have found good success with this type of mobile advertising are retail, entertainment venues, and restaurants. 

In Page Mobile Advertising.

You will find the other type of mobile advertising to be most comparable to Internet search engines.  In a nutshell, a consumer will do a mobile search for a particular item they are looking for.  If what you offer through your mobile advertisement matches what the customer is looking for, your mobile ad will appear when they search. 

Search engine databases are typically made up of merchants who are subscribers to the mobile search engine.  This form of advertising can help a merchant on a budget, as they usually charge a set monthly subscription fee to be in the database. 

Whether you prefer SMS advertising or In Page advertising, there are affordable options available to you for mobile phone advertising. 

Be sure to visit SmallBusinessMobileAdvertising.com to learn much more about how small businesses can use mobile phone advertising to grow their business. Make sure to get your free mobile advertising trial (and mention the promo code “mobilenow” and receive double the credits during your free trial period).