930,000 customers use Bank of America’s mobile banking services. Android phones have doubled in growth and surpassed the iPhone in the last 8 months. Mobile click-through rates average between 8.9% and 49% for online mobile advertising. These are key reasons to take mobile marketing seriously.

There are three incompatible operating systems on mobile smartphones. Blackberry handles email and corporate applications well. Apple’s iPhone, which broke new ground with its app market and has led the industry in recent years. In recent months, Google’s Android now leads the pack.

So why should marketers react?

Mobile browsers still only account for 1% of web traffic, but you only have to look at the demographics of mobile users. They are educated, tech-savvy with disposable income. Most mobile web browsing is done while switching. This segment is the fastest growing market segment today, with mobile devices doubling every few months.

Who is already using mobile marketing well?

Most organizations that do this well started some sort of mobile marketing program with the holy trinity of timely, personalized, and actionable marketing messages. Currently, the best practice is for news organizations (think New York Times app) and media organizations (SMS and movie links, etc.), because they have the business model behind it. However, there are other groups that do well too. In Sydney, the Oxford clothing store uses mobile marketing in the form of SMS to promote its clothing sales to subscribers.

Mobile marketing app?

Almost all smartphones now use GPS to give users their current location. Reebok released a free app that allowed athletes to track their location and, in turn, provide more information to their coaches. This generates involvement and interaction directly with the brand. The possibilities of mobile marketing apps are almost endless. When you combine GPS with WIFI, you can have location-based marketing down to location, direction, and speed of travel.

SMS marketing?

McDonald’s, “Send an SMS to Santa and receive your gift in seconds.” This led to a staggering 25% response rate – over 1.5 million entries in five weeks. They promoted the use of unique codes on glasses for consumers to send a text message, directly to the restaurant. Each code was a winner, for the first time with physical prices.

Mobile marketing is the next big thing for customer acquisition and retention. Companies promote their products using a wide range of SMS marketing initiatives, including SMS coupon delivery, notifying customers of special offers and sales, event-based SMS advertising to drive event participation, and much more. plus.