Mobile marketing for beginners (the basics)

In this post I will give a small introduction to mobile marketing. This is a rather new market and its growing rapidly! Some researches have shown this market could very easily become the next big thing. With this I mean it has the potential the undergo an equally explosive growth as internet has had in the last 10 years.

There are several forms of mobile marketing.

Mobile marketing using SMS
This way of mobile marketing has grown a lot over the last couple of years. It usually consist out of an 'opt-in' option for customers. After they have opt-in they receive special items like ringtones etc. Because of the overflow of spam and misuse of this form of mobile marketing the Mobile Marketing Association set guidelines to prevent spam.

Mobile marketing using MMS
MMS mobile marketing can consist out of all sorts of multimedia from image-slideshows, text, audio or video (mms stands for Multimedia Message Service, which explains a lot). This is becoming increasingly popular because in this time nearly every mobile device has a color screen and is able to send and receive these messages.

In-game mobile marketing
Gaming on a mobile phone as become more and more advanced. Remember when we were all excited we had 'snake' on our mobile phones? These days the mobile games look more like the games we played on our computers only a few years back. Newest and most popular trends in mobile gaming are: interactive real-time 3D games, massive multi-player games, and social network games. So the focus is on creating a more complex and richer game play. But on the other side very casual games are also very popular. Brands are now starting to advertise using promotional messages within these mobile games and applications.

Mobile web marketing
These days mobile internet is almost available on every telephone. This function is so widely used by people because of its ease to use. Imagine sitting in the train and you want to check your e-mail, within seconds (presuming there is a decent internet connection where you are at that moment) you could be reading through your inbox.

Mobile marketing on applications
With the introduction of phones like the iPhone, Android and Blackberry also came the introduction of mobile apps. These are application created for these types of mobile phones. These applications are often regularly used by customers, I am talking about applications to check your social networks or email for example. These applications often have a build in ad system.

Personally I think this form of mobile marketing is the best. Its easy monitored and with the rise of apps this will be the most valuable.

There are several major services which you can use for mobile advertising. Beneath i will list the most popular ones (in random order):

1. AMob
Admob is one of the biggest ad providers for mobile phones. Their ads have had over 250 million impressions over phones like the iPhone, Android phones etc. Which is amazing.

2. Apple iAds
Apple iAds is a rather new service by apple. It got introduced with iOS 4.0. Ads are managed with iTunes.

3. Google Mobile Ads
Google Mobile Ads is very similar to AdMob (both owned by google).

4. Burstly
Burstly has the ability to run ads in your app coming from the major providers. Their networks consists out of: Admob, Quattro, Google, Video Egg, Smaato, Millennial and Greystripe.

5. Mobclix
Mobclix also provides advertisements from multiple networks. It has a built-in analytics system so you can easily track your ad statistics.

This information should give you enough information to start your own mobile campaign, good luck!