Mobile Marketing Growing in the U.S.

posted by Ted on November 7, 2011

Mobile marketing is the act of reaching directly to consumers through SMS messaging, leveraging the growing number of mobile phone owners and users. It is predicted to be the next major global technology phenomenon, and to a certain extent it is already used across Europe and Asia by businesses of all sizes to deliver targeted messages on a wholesale scale. Mobile business consultants and service providers already have access to the frameworks for dealing with SMS text marketing, yet still the US market remains behind much of the rest of the world in this method.

The US is surprisingly far behind when it comes to utilizing available mobile technologies. While the Internet is very much the domain of US business, in mobile communications the US seems to lag some way behind the rest of the world. There are 36 countries in the world that have over 100% per capita usage of mobile phones, including many otherwise poor and indebted nations. The US, for whatever reason, isn’t one of these countries.

Forecasts predict that the US will reach the 100% mark by 2013, putting it behind many other countries already far beyond that level of market penetration. When we examine the statistics, the US is currently sitting at 86% per capita usage, compared to Taiwan’s 106%, the UK’s 120%, Italy’s 140% and 150% in Hong Kong and Estonia (this means that there are more mobile phones than people). This also means there is still some way to go before the US is ‘in’ as deep as many of its European and Asian counterparts. However, this may mean that mobile marketing in the US has an even longer lifespan at maximum responsiveness, while the penetration of the technologies reaches the levels of other nations.

There are still gaps to be exploited in mobile technologies in the US. This doesn’t mean that the effectiveness of mobile marketing is reduced, rather it may give it a level of exclusivity that makes it even MORE effective. As noted earlier, signs are showing that the gap in overall mobile phone penetration between the US and Asia is closing. For advertisers, this means the mobile marketing business is still in it’s infancy, but looks like it is here to stay. For those looking to jump on board, the rewards for being an early adopter may prove even more valuable.

With mobile marketing, business owners across the world are realizing the benefits of this kind of promotion on their bottom line. The mobile marketing business looks set to continue to grow at a rapid rate over the next few years. Consumers in the US are yet to be fully exposed to marketing through SMS, and as such are still very responsive to message passed through this medium. Indeed, when compared to broadcast and print marketing, the results are staggering. As such, it’s only a matter of time before the mobile marketing business in the US catches up with the more established mobile marketing business sectors in Europe and Asia, which will provide advertisers with a whole world of new marketing possibilities.

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