The US financial meltdown has greatly affected the economic ecosystem and no one can say for sure when this will be over.  To avoid layoffs and closures, most companies have resorted to cut down on company expenses. Marketing budgets are usually the first one to experience such adjustments.  Although this is not proven to be an effective approach, this area is easily targeted because it has the biggest fund allocation and can be adjusted easily without immediate effect on business revenue. Mobile marketing is a smart alternative, cost- saving solution for businesses in times of economic mayhem. To maximize the remaining advertising budget, companies should look into the benefits and key attributes of SMS advertising. Apart from Mobile marketing being an economical option, this can even be a more effective medium than using traditional media which tends to be very expensive.Here are more reasons why Mobile Marketing is greatly considered by businesses in tough economic times:

1. Convenient and Cost effective- a very timely marketing solution for businesses of all sizes, SMS advertising lets you promote your brand even if you have a small marketing budget, perfect for small and mid-sized business
2. Establish interaction and develop a one on one relationship with consumers that establishes consumer trust and loyalty
3. Permission based -  Ability of consumer to opt in and opt out
4. Increase number of consumers realizing the value of Mobile Marketing during hard times , eg. Mobile Coupons
5. Can easily reach target audience anywhere anytime
6. Can easily be integrated to any existing marketing efforts, add SMS Marketing in your media mix and maximize the results
7. Turnkey solution in creating campaigns. Deploy SMS campaigns with ease.
8. Viral marketing, a plus to your business since most phones are capable of forwarding messages, it is most likely that your messages will be passed on to your clients’ contacts.
9. Track results of your campaign in real time, know which campaigns are successful . Learn from the unsuccessful ones
10. Enables you to run multiple text messaging campaigns at the same time
11. Be in control in creating, launching and managing your own campaigns, it is simple and easy to deploy, it doesn’t require any technical know how.

Mobile marketing is an innovative new dimension in the marketing mix. SMEs are catching up and are now heading towards the same direction as the big companies when it comes to promoting their business. Now with the financial conditions, large companies and SMEs share basic and equal opportunities in using SMS Marketing as an economical promotional medium to still carry out their advertising efforts despite budget cut-offs.

With all the promotional tools provided, Its up to the marketers to decide on how they will translate existing marketing plans into mobile campaigns. There are bunch of platforms, standard programs for different types of SMS promotion, you just have to look around, study your options and choose which works best for you.

Tags: effective mobile marketing, free mobile marketing, free mobile marketing brand, free mobile marketing print, free mobile marketing radio, free mobile marketing tv, mobile advertising, mobile campaigns, mobile coupons, mobile marketing, mobile marketing finanancial crisis, small mid sized business, sms advertising, SMS campaigns, SMS marketing, SMS promotion, sms text advertising, text messaging campaigns, tips mobile marketing

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 6th, 2008 at 12:27 am and is filed under mobile marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.