Why Will Mobile Marketing Be The Next Big Thing?

By Author: Rachael william
Total Articles: 30
Comment this article

To a large extent mobile marketing is already a big thing, but it will soon be a great deal bigger. Here we will look at the current status of its two major growth areas, SMS advertising and mobile advertising, and consider some of the latest predictions regarding their future growth. We will also look at some of the more important drivers of this growth and see how the small scale developer can benefit from it.

The most recent statistics predict that globally in 2011, 8 trillion SMS messages were sent, up from 6.9 trillion in 2010. MMS grew from 249 billion in 2010 to a predicted 320 billion in 2011. The 490 billion users of mobile email is growing exponentially and the 2010 figures of 311.2 million mobile instant messaging (IM) users is likely to hit 1.6 trillion within the next three years.

In-message SMS advertising has huge consumer reach. Any unused portion of an SMS message can by used for ad placement. All the things that make messaging so popular with its users, particularly its immediacy and pervasiveness, also make it very attractive to advertisers. There are a number of models to exploit this. For instance ...
... operators can offer reduced subscription rates if users accept that unused text real estate can be used for ads.

The other major growth area of mobile advertising is via mobile apps. There are many different types of mobile apps, but those that are anticipated as delivering the most rapid growth in advertising revenues are those that are location orientated, for instance search ads, location ads and augmented reality apps.

The global revenue from all forms of mobile ads is predicted to be US$3.3 million in 2011. By 2015 it is anticipated that this will have grown to $20.6 billion. Several agencies agree on those (or very similar) figures. In an era where global growth is expected to stagnate or even decline, it is quite remarkable that the growth of mobile marketing is expected to more than quadruple over three years.

A hugely interesting feature of this booming market is its accessibility. No longer is it necessary to be a large corporation in order to benefit. Any individual or small start-up business with a sufficient skill base can become involved. There is not even the need to invest in sophisticated equipment and software. All that is needed are readily downloadable software development programs such as iOS and Android SDKs; with these there is no barrier to prevent the skilled entrepreneurial developer from making serious money from such ventures as Android and iPhone app advertising.

Interested in iPhone advertising? Adfonic's mobile advertising marketplace enables developers working with iOS, Android, Java, mobile sites and other mobile advertising platforms to generate revenues with in-app and mobile site advertising and to promote their apps to drive downloads.