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The largest and fastest growing product sector in history is the mobile phone. You need to know more about this sector and how to use it to be the Google of mobile messaging. B4 tht I rly wnt 2 tlk 2U abt txting, K? That was weblish and it highlights the enormous profit potential as it sweeps the world via mobile phones. Enabled by exponential improvements in semiconductor manufacturing, the mobile phone has the distinction of being the most rapidly adopted new technology in human history. Growth has been faster than for the land phone, the television, and the Internet itself. Mobile telephony has surpassed even the dissemination of Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine in the 1950s. Remarkably, it has been less than 30 years since the appearance of the first commercially available mobile phone in the US; it was Motorola’s DynaTAC 8000 brick phone. In 2009, mobile subscriptions passed the 4 billion mark. Today more than half the world’s population pays to use mobile phones. Cell phone ringtones are routinely heard in remote villages of developing nations without running water or modern sanitation. In fact, two-thirds of the mobile phones in use are in developing nations. There, they are bringing many their first access to modern banking, real-time commodity prices, severe weather alerts, and other important services. Mobile phone innovators and their investors have been rewarded with fantastic returns but the opportunities for transformational profits are far from over. There are still untapped markets in mobile computing with enormous wealth-creating potential for those that invest with a long view. The mobile phone as a data platform, in particular, is still in its infancy. While originally a purely voice-based technology, mobile technology has become primarily a data platform. This capability first became commercially available in 1993 with the creation of a short messaging service known as SMS, also known as text messaging. This data service, in turn, has grown wildly popular. Today, nearly 80% of all mobile phone subscriptions include SMS text messaging. In 2009, a whopping 1.5 trillion text messages were sent worldwide, on pace to hit 1.8 trillion in 2010. In March 2010, data surpassed voice on mobile carrier networks for the first time, SMS has more users than any other data application in history. This transformation of the phone into a widly successful data platform represents an enormous opportunity both for the entrepreneurial firms and the investors who back them. The financial media overlook SMS as a growth area, probably because smartphones are inherently sexier. SMS however has real advantages. Not only is it far less expensive, its functionality is being steadily improved. Take for example Twitter’s recent acquisition of the latest blockbuster killer app, Cloudhopper. This startup’s founders, now incredibly wealthy, developed the means to send, receive, and organize Twitter messages using simple SMS texts. In many respects however mobile texting parallels the state of the Internet in its formative days. I remember well because back then I was with Deloitte, a Big 4 accounting and consulting firm, and I was based in the San Francisco Bay Area. I consulted with companies that were building and using the Internet; these included network equipment manufactures, developers of application software for networks, and bandwidth and service providers. We developed web-mail, VOIP, web-based video conferencing, and many more innovative consumer and business products. Now, as it was back then, vast amounts of data are being transferred. Beyond simple usage fees, no one has monetized that enormous sea of information that texting represents until now. Wireless carriers are beginning to look beyond text messages being a low profit service and offering, for a fee, plug-ins to their text message streams as a source of leads to businesses of all types. Many Internet Marketing professionals know that the more direct and targeted their message and offer, the more likely leads will buy from them and convert to loyal customers. We are also beginning to see several categories of mobile consumers. These include: - people who want to stay current with news, weather, and events of all types; - people who are social and curious and enjoy bringing others together and planning events and outings; - people who use the information for their own personal efficiency and ability to keep a busy schedule; and of course - the people who want to be the first to try the latest and greatest technology and applications. However, even in Mobile Internet Marketing, the basics are still required. These include: - keyword research to target leads among the categories of mobile consumers mentioned previously; - opt-in capabilities most likely in the form of coupons; - lead list management with outbound texting capabilities; and - web analytics to see how mobile traffic is making it to your site and converting to customers. Here is a tip for you to do early in your efforts to become a Mobile Internet Marketing professional. Be sure to review and monitor the providers of tools that you use for your Internet Marketing business as you expand to include Mobile Marketing. Their capabilities need to include the ability for location based services, mobile couponing, POS (point of sale) or mobile opt-in, and utilization of Google maps and business listings in online business directories. In addition, use tools like Enquisite Optimizer to learn how your keywords are ranking when you obtain an internet connection in different places and with different mobile browsers. Be on the look out for these and other capabilities as mobile marketing is still very new and a lot of innovation will arise. As an Internet Marketing professional, be prepared to add capabilities for your existing customers and capture new customers as they use more of the mobile computing devices for their needs so you can be No 1, like Google, in the world of Mobile Internet Marketing Remember, the riches are in the niches! In order to help you, I will continue to post (on this blog site) tips and techniques I have obtained and learned from My Go-To-Market Partners as I became a Digital Entrepreneur and built aspenIbiz, my online business, along with my various Web 2.0 properties and affiliate web sites. Together, these tips will provide a traffic formula that will improve your ranking and drive qualified leads to your web site. Finally, I want to thank Patrick Cox of Breakthrough Technology Alerts as he was the source of some of the materials about the technology advancements mentioned in this post.
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