Nowadays cellular or mobile phones have become more than just an instrument used to connect people together. Now they serve as an efficient advertising medium as well. Mobile marketing is the name given to the approach of using cell phones for business marketing and promotion.

How is this technique, utilized for advertisements? One of the most popular ways is to take advantage of text messaging or SMS service, a feature possessed by all the modern cell phones. Any business or company acquires the contact numbers of its customers or any probable clients and then advertise its latest offers and products to them, by sending SMS messages.

In the past few years, mobiles have gained much popularity as a marketing tool by utilizing SMS feature. It is now, considered an officially acknowledged medium of advertisement. Not only this but also the advertising and marketing campaigns, using mobile phones are now, regulated according to the guidelines set by the competent authorities such as Interactive Advertising Bureau (IBA) and Mobile Marketing Association (MMA).

Mobile marketing is for sure a fast though expensive way of advertising. Many smart business entities utilize SMS facility to inform their customers of latest offers and promotions on a day-to-day basis or at least once weekly. This publicity method is much similar to promoting, a coffee shop business by sending the customers an advertising coupon once a day, offering a special discount on “Flavor of the day”.

Mobile marketing is not only advantageous to the business entities but is also very convenient for an average mobile using customer. Many of them find it an effective means to stay updated by getting the promotions and latest offers. Not only the customers sign up earnestly to receive SMS advertisements but also many companies and businesses now have a specific number for their customers. Their customers can text them to get any required information regarding opening times, store locations, sales, new arrivals etc.

Mobile marketing has also evolved with time and now along with SMS service, it utilizes Multimedia Message Service or MMS for short. An MMS, is sent and received just as an SMS, however, it contains more elaborated information in the form of video or photos of the related product, combined with music or audio messages, improving the impression.

The media practitioners have not only utilized SMS and MMS services for business marketing but there is another quite popular mode of “in-game mobile marketing”. This approach takes benefit of the huge interest of teenagers and young men and women in playing games on mobiles, whether these are simple word games or 3-D games or other networking games.

In-game mobile marketing involves the placement of different ads or streamers advertising various logos and brands, on the games. This task is, performed by the game developers and these ads then appear after short intervals, displaying the specific name or business. This mode of advertisement is being, used profusely and is commonly known as “advergaming”.

Mobile marketing plays a somewhat partial role in internet marketing as well. When the mobile users log on to specific websites or use different search engines using their mobiles, different ads and pop ups loaded on these websites also appear on the mobile phone of the users, in the same way as they appear on their laptops or desktops.

As if not all this, was enough, mobile marketing has expanded further with the advent of Bluetooth technology. The main advantage of using Bluetooth is that when the device is, turned on, users can exchange texts, photos and videos freely with other Bluetooth users. It is an excellent device for receiving large files or text messages as it has large memory capacity. However, sending content via Bluetooth requires the permission of the recipient.

This is just a glimpse of the multitude of advantages that mobile marketing offers the business personnel of today.  Start thinking of the different ways in which you could use mobile marketing in your own business!