Mobile Marketing is going to become the most important business marketing tool ever!

Up to now, nothing comes close to the power of the internet for bringing a constant stream of customers to your doors but when you add this to the power of mobile smart phones – that power multiplies exponentially.

Why?

More and more people are using their phones to find things online each and every day. With the massive expansion of sales of smart phones (like the iphone, blackberry and android) and the global explosion of faster and faster wireless internet technology, it won’t be long before everyone’s first port of call for information, products and services will be their phone.

Mobile marketing is the world wide web…made smaller! Not only because the devices are portable but more importantly because they are mobile and bring web results specific to your location.

Even now (2009 as I’m writing this) on a smart phone you can download a free App and find the nearest restaurant, hairdresser, pub, club, nursery etc in a town, city or country you’ve never visited before! You’ll then be able to check out their site, their offerings (products, menus etc), read reviews and best of all be actually guided to their door.

This really is Star Trek stuff…but without the Starships!

And what you need to understand is that this can be implemented here and now in one of two ways…

1. Mobile Website

Get a mobile website set-up for your business right now.

It will allow quick and easy navigation for your prospects and customers, without them having to wait forever for images and files to load in, likewise they won’t have to scroll around. Your mobile website will then be given precedence in the search listings.

Setting up a mobile website is either a low cost task or a zero cost task (if your website is using cms software like wordpress for example).

2. Mobile Application

Have a mobile App built for your website. An App is basically a little program that your phone runs.

To date over 3 billion iPhone Apps have been downloaded and that figure is growing at super silly rates across all smart phone platforms each and every day. An App for your business could become the most important tool your business ever has, here’s a few stats…

• They are available in 80 countries
• There are over 200,000 Apps in the iStore alone.
• These customers are trained to buy – The iStore has 125 million credit cards on their system to click and buy!
• iPhone users already spend over 100USD per month on their phone.

Probably the most important benefit of an App for your business is that everything is delivered in real time. No waiting for emails to be read or phones to be picked up, with the flick of a switch you can update every single user instantly and for FREE!

For example you could have an App for your business to…

• Send promotions, coupons or vouchers to. Maybe if you had a restaurant and things where slow one Monday evening, you could simply send a coupon out through your App and all your customers would instantly receive it, view it and then act on it.
• Create contests, polls and customer voting services. With instant distribution and instant results.
• Use it for fundraising, time sensitive alerts and schedule events.
• Use it to provide training, videos, membership sites and so much more.

All in real time, easily and once set-up – for free.

Setting up a mobile App is a specialist task and can set you back a few bob as a result…but, make no mistake they are going to become a must have for businesses… even before a traditional website!

One last thing about mobile marketing…

Mobile phone users are far more likely to respond to your marketing and more importantly far more likely to buy from your business.