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Mobile phone leads the world as the fastest growing, most reliable and advanced digital technology available in the marketplace today.

Our phones are with us all the time. They are one of the most effective ways to get your message anytime and anywhere. In fact, last year over 6.1 trillion messages were sent all over the world. Even more astonishing is that the average text message is read within 4 minutes compared to 48 hours with email.

Through text messaging you can reach people with minimal effort, txt messages are less intrusive and break the clutter of daily chores, making it a great reminder for events.

Essentially, the latest technology associated with the mobile phone gives us the ability to expand current strategies in marketing and even fuse conventional ways such as leafleting. With leaflet distribution, a small business can build a list of prospects that can be updated with offers on a regular basis through text messaging.

Consequently by texting, you can readily put your brand before your potential customers at anytime which is a powerful strategy to advertise your products and services. SMS marketing isn't just instant, but also an economical method of marketing which gets delivered to customers directly; ensuring that the desired message is communicated to the target audience at the right time.

It allows business owners to reach out to a huge number of people simultaneously and the results can easily be measured especially where specific offer are associated with the campaigns being run.

As a small business, SMS marketing is not out of your reach. In fact, it may be more cost-effective than leaflet distribution which is only 2-3% response rate. The figures for SMS marketing is however more impressive with an open rate of 95% and response rate of around 11%.

Now, that there's a click-2-call feature, directions to business location and instant access to the Internet. SMS marketing in the hand of small business owners is sure ammunition that could set you aside from your competitors. It is worth to it to start thinking about the ways in which your small or local business can implement SMS Marketing for the purpose of your business.

SMS Marketing

While 65% of email is spam, less than 10% of SMSis spam. No wonder why SMS campaigns are super successful and are an effective way to reach potentials clients, increase sales and foot traffic to yourbusiness.  SMS marketing is none intrusive, hence an open rate of 95% anda response rate of 11%.  Even better for your business is that 67% ofconsumers said that they would like to receive offers by text.  Follow usand lets' show you how you can use SMS Marketing to boost your business

Having a mobile website or landing page is more than a good idea. This is because research proves that it increases traffic to your site by up to 13%.  With over 16 million people accessing their internet by the phone within the UK, there is not a better time to go mobile. A mobile website will present your content in a mobile compatible way to your potential customers and drive call to action suchas click-2-call, mobile maps etc. Get your business mobile compatible today

QR code or Quick response  code means what it says. It's a 2-dimentional barcode that gives you the capability to share any information about your business with your potential customers. All they have to do is to scan this code with their free smartphone app and view your information  at their convenience. This means that no paper, no pens or clutter is involved. You can share anything from your website to video clips or even business cards- allfrom a QR code

Knotice publised a very interesting report this month (Jan 2011) and basically this report found out that 13.36% of emails are opened on mobile devices with the highest rate seen early morning between 6-7am. As we could have probably guessed the iPhone comprises 65% of this activity. Infact, here are an outline of the stats:

1. iPhone: 8.74%
2. iPad: 2.00%
3. Android: 1.92%
4. Windows: 0.31%
5. Blackberry: 0.15%
6. Palm: 0.25%

Considering that these figures are based on a 155 million permission-based email messages, these are significant numbers of email even for what seem to be small percentages as above.

Another interesting findings was that performance varies by industry. For instance, retails is at 20.08%, financial services 19.38% with consumer products and services at 15.61% and 14.11% respectedly.

So what does this mean for small business marketing? As a small business, you can offer value through email campaigns and atleast you are aware that there may be an increased chance that your emails are read as mobile devices increases.

Benefits to Small Businesses

1.     SMS messages are the perfectinstant reminders because they are typically read within 15 minutes of delivery to the mobile handset.

2.     Ideal to break through the clutterof day-to-day activities as it serves as an excellent reminder

3.     Transparency – small businesseswill demand to know where their ads are showing on the mobile Web andin-application.

4.     Mobile analytics will improveand will move towards conversion tracking.

5.     Click-to-call is a great feature:  There will be a shift towards lead-generation.

6.     The ROI associated with textmessage programs is easy to calculate when used in conjunction with directresponse tactics and vouchers or promotional codes.

7.     The loyalty created by buildinga relationship with customers who want to receive mobile communication can beastounding.

8.     It is easy to integrate SMSinto existing applications, and very natural for customers to pass these offers to friends and family.

9.     Reduce the cost associated with printing and distributing leaflets which yield around 1-2% response rate.

10. Mobile, in general – and SMS, in particular – can help businesses create a one-on-one, two-way interaction

11. Relevance, targeting and reach are critical indriving foot traffic to places of business

12. Consumers can opt-in to deals of the day, giving businessesthe ability to connect with a targeted audience.

13. For local businesses this means that their relevantads are hitting their target market and provides business owners with the meansto get in front of users who are more likely make a purchase.

Benefits to Consumers

1.     The user is sent a simple SMS  that can be received on all phones that users can present to the business running the promotion.

2.     The other advantage is that since consumers always have their phone with them, not only can businesses make offers more immediate and compelling, but users do not have to remember to bring vouchers to the store as they will have their phone with them.

3.     Relevance has become an increasingly important driver for today’s consumer and, as such, many consumerswill only engage with advertising that is truly meaningful.

4.     Less invasive and unwanted,lists of mobile phone numbers for text messaging programs are collected.