It’s Not If, But When?

This article was originally published in The Growth Masters Daily (www.thegrowthmastersdaily.com)

It’s not if, But when……

  ….You’ll participate in mobile marketing, one way or another.  As a consumer or a retailer, a recipient or a transmitter, either way, mobile marketing is entering your existence in a bigger way by the day.  Deals and steals through mobile devices is the natural evolution of marketing and advertising, as people continue to grow tired of sitting idly by watching television commercials, reading magazine promotions and coupon clipping. We’re inundated with advertising, with marketers broadcasting to the masses in hopes of making an impression.  Imagine New York’s Times Square, or London’s Piccadilly Circus, with all the massive electronic messaging boards blocking out the sun and making the night into day with all their lights.  Have you considered the shopping district of shinsaibashi in Tokyo?  Mass marketing and advertising all around, yet where are people looking?  At their mobile phones, Blackberry, and Apple Tablets, that’s where.

Today’s experts in the field have learned the truth that it is all about making a connection with an individual, rather than shot-gunning they are rifling their messages to consumers. Marketers and advertisers know exactly where the eyes are, and they are on their mobile devices. No longer, is the mobile phone a luxury or “for emergency use only” device, it is the extension of our communications abilities, our vehicle to connect.

Don’t believe me?  Next time you are outside of your house or at work, take a look around you.  You’ll see people looking down at their mobile devices; walking into fountains at the mall, standing at a red light waiting to cross the road, and sometimes, unfortunately, driving down the highway.  People are streaming video on the train on the way to work, or texting some friend about drinks after work.  At the beginning of 2011, the percentage estimate of U.S. companies using mobile marketing was about 2%.  The estimate at mid-year is already surpassing 4%, and by the end of 2015, approximately 54% of American corporations will have embraced mobile marketing.  Today, the odd person that sticks out of a crowd is the one without a mobile phone in their hand. That population is shrinking constantly.

I just finished watching a documentary on the 101 most influential gadgets in history, and guess which one is numero uno?  The Smartphone, of course.  It, like no other gadget in existence has changed the world so quickly, with its more than a dozen gadgets rolled into one.  What are some of them? Simply put, GPS, the answering machine, telephone, internet, computer, camera, movie camera, telephone switchboard, news media center, messaging center, conference call center and a whole bunch more.  With the proliferation of applications, or “apps” as to what they are commonly referred, individuals and companies of all sizes are accomplishing more quickly.  In an instant, you can check the weather, send a message, find directions, and receive a discount coupon and a plethora of other tasks and duties, all delivered or transferred in your hand.  At this writing, there are more than 5 billion mobile devices in operation world wide, with China leading the way. By the end of next year, Smartphone ownership is projected to reach 6Billion world wide

Here is some food-for-thought; the number of apps in residency on your mobile device is clearly representative of your mobile prowess.  What I mean by that is simply; if you own many apps, yet do not use them, or worse yet, don’t know how, you are clearly at a disadvantage.  Get them off your device, unless you like bragging on how many you have downloaded.  If their presence clogs productivity or confuses the issue of locating the right app, you are fooling yourself.  Lean is mean, and that is the way I recommend you view the app environment.  Operate in a mean, lean fashion and you will be able to stay atop the mobile revolution.  Concurrently, if you have not capitalized on time saving, convenience oriented applications; you are missing out on time management opportunities.

Mobile advertising revenues are projected to skyrocket by the end of 2012, with a target of $25 Billion by the end of 2015.  That’s is a paradigm shift if I ever heard of one.  Companies are switching their advertising campaigns away from print media to mobile, and doing so in record numbers.  I don’t mean to say that print is completely dead; it’s just on life support at the moment. As Millennial’s become a larger part of the decision making force in corporations, and the Boomers and beyond move into retirement, the pace will quicken into a race for supremacy of their respective space.

Regardless of your current view, mobile is here to stay, and will continue to evolve and fascinate us with its capabilities.  Since the dawning of the personal computer, the pace of technology and knowledge transfer has quickened.  The past thirty years’ pace will seem slow as we roll into the middle of this decade and beyond.

                                                                                       

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David J Dunworth is an internationally acclaimed author and presenter on the subjects of business, focusing on the entrepreneurs and emerging enterprise arenas.  He is the CEO of TeXT-Icon Mobile Marketing Communications (www.text-icon.com), an international text and video communications firm offering affordable and bleeding edge technologies for marketing.