Mobile Marketing Campaigns can pay off BIG

Mobile advertising is the advertising wave of the future that is working for many companies today. Smart phone penetration is on the rise and mobile marketing campaigns are growing by leaps and bounds. But are they working? Do you need a mobile ad network? Are there concrete ROI results?

In august 2009 Pizza Hut launched a new free iPhone app that let customers order pizza from their iPhones. The app came complete with fun graphics like exploding pizzas. Within the first two weeks of launching the mobile campaig
Pizza Hut had one hundred thousand downloads for the app and it is now one of the principal ways they receive their pizza orders. Similarly, in 2010 Nike launching a three-minute video ad called "Write the Future," on its Facebook page during the 2010 Soccer World Cup. The video encouraged users to edit a video filled with famous soccer stars. Then the best-edited videos competed for votes. The result was that 20 million people viewed Nike's ad and played with it as opposed to Adidas who was the official 2010 World Cup sponsor. Many of these viewers were mobile.

Mobile marketing campaigns are not only for those interested in selling things. Obama's Social Media Strategy of 2008 relied heavily upon online networks and on an organized mobile ad network to recruit and engage his volunteers. Its also no accident that his inability to similarly engage the entire country as President is in large part due to this missing mobile connection. The uprisings throughout the Middle East known as the Arab Spring are also due to the new power of social media through mobile phones.

The growth in mobile advertising and mobile ad networks is also heavily supported by all the major giants in tech. Google, Apple, Facebook and Twitter all see their bulk of their target market as mobile. Some computer forecasters are even predicting the death of the desktop computer. From the viewpoint of any size business the power of mobile advertising is obvious. The cell phone has replaced the watch on the arms of most consumers and ads have the potential to reach customers 24/7 anywhere in the world with targeted current ads. In the future coupons delivered to customers as they leave the car for the mall will be commonplace.

The extension of social media and the popularity of using Twitter, Facebook and Google's new Plus on cell phones introduces another layer of quality to mobile marketing. Likes and recommendations from friends and families on these networks are much more valuable than third party advertising. One customer who likes you and passes on the word to his/her friends and family can potential turn into a sales explosion. Having a good mobile ad network contributes to viral. Moreover, these are high quality recommendations that far outweigh any other kind of marketing. Simply put, people trust the recommendations from people they know more than from exte
al sources. Innovative mobile marketing campaigns like the Nike World Cup campaign have shown that the mobile advertising is most effective when it is fun and unique.

According to Nielsen's statistics the wealthiest consumers are also the ones that are most likely to own and use smart phones. With the statistics hovering around 50% for both men and women these are not only eyeballs, they are eyeballs that have disposable income. Before dismissing mobile ads as too expensive or too difficult for your business look into ways to capitalize on this growing and exciting market!