The Mobile Market Place is still evolving and will continue to evolve as Smartphones become smarter and Smartphones users become more demanding.

If your looking for Mobile suggestions of sites to follow, you might consider following us on FaceBook and Google+ where we post articles on Mobile, how other businesses are using Mobile, what is working for them and more.

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/sms4sale

Google+: https://plus.google.com/104006620176776813647

If your just starting out, let me offer these suggestions:

For now, Small Business has several choices to market their product and services to customer and prospect SmartPhones, even the older Mobile phone.

A good place to start is asking yourself, what kind of Message do you want to deliver to your Mobile followers because your message will help drive your platform choice.  Here is a brief summary to help choose a platform.

Mobile Apps: By far the most expensive choice of Mobile Marketing is a Mobile App as you will need to hire a developer to create, test and Market your App.  The more functionality and features you want will obviously will drive the cost.  According to an article in the Harvard Business Review, building a mediocre App is just as bad as selling a mediocre product and consumers don’t react well to anything wasting their time.  And to complicate things and drive the cost up more,. your Apple App won’t run on an Android device and the same for Android Apps on Apple phones. Finally, there are still a lot consumers still running on the older Mobile phones, you should take this into consideration in your choice as these consumers won’t be able to run the App.

Mobile Website: A Mobile Website is designed to fit the small screens of Mobile and SmartPhones.  Mobile Websites can be viewed on virtually any Phone as long as they have data access and a Web Browser installed.  Your approach to a Mobile Website should be concise and brief.  Your Mobile visitors are on the go and all they just want are just the facts.such as location, contact Info, what products and services you offer and other critical info for people on the go.  Google is reported to be updating their search engines to accomodate Mobile Website results in searches from Mobile and Smartphones, so having a Mobile Website to go along with your regular Website is worth considering.

Text Messaging: If you want your Mobile followers to be notified of special promotions, discounts, coupons and time sensitive information, then a Text Messaging platform makes a lot of sense.  Unlike a Mobile App or Mobile Website, Text Messaging pushes your message to opted-in followers directly to their phone in minutes from when you send it.  Our platform includes the advanced features that Text Messaging has to offer such as Appt. confirmations, Mobile Couponing, Text to Win Contests and more.  It even gives you the ability to create your own Mobile Web Pages with a helpful wizard that allows you to add your logo, product pictures, links and even YouTube video links that can play on the Mobile Device.

I hope I’ve give you a some helpful information and Food for Thought on the Mobile Frontier.  If anyone has any questions, just send me a message and I would be happy to try and answer them.

Regards,

Ron Cregier
SMS-4Sale

@sms4sale @rlmosca Looks like I have a lot to learn. I have optimized my own WP site for mobile viewing, so at least I’m headed in the right direction.

So would you build a database of mobile #s the same way as you would approach getting email signups? I’m talking about SMS texting here.

Thanks for a great start to my mobile education.

There are a couple of additional ways to consider:

1. Put an SMS opt-in form on your website that can collect additional information in addition to the phone number such as location, gender, etc. to help with your target marketing.

2. Use a specific SMS Keyword that when someone Texts to it, it will automatically update your DataBase.  You can also include a responder Text message back with a Thank You, promotion or another message type to begin building your relationship.

Thanks Frederic. I’ll check it out. @fredericgonzalo

@whitsonn @sms4sale @rlmosca Great post with great information!Does anyone have the demographics on their qr code users?

QR codes are very useful and easy. When scanned you don’t need to remember the URL name to visit and as a Mobile App creator I offer QR codes for all your pages on your mobile app – whether that be for native mobile apps for web apps. 

The mobile apps that I offer give you the choice of using an easy platform to make your own apps, or, if you don’t feel that you want to, don’t have the time or not sure I can do it for you at an easily affordable price. To efficiently let your potential buyers know that you have a new listing that comes onto the market you can use push notifications which can go out to all your potential buyers. If you prefer you can use SMS.  You can also use coupons for promotions in other businesses such as retail.  I’d be happy to help – with both mobile apps and website creation – appsability.com and buildawebforyou.com 

@whitsonn, I agree with  @sms4sale we are evolving into a total mobile age! Everyone lives on their phones. 

My business uses text blasts (at most 3 a month) and we have a mobile site with access to our top 10 pages in a mobile form so that it’s easy to navigate. 

@kimberlycarlo @admobile

Have had a slight meander in my course and am now spending the bulk of my time working in education and B2B engineering/mfg. So I haven’t had much time to explore the mobile side of things yet. I’m using a proprietary system for the college and the mfr. is still gearing up their marketing from the more basic areas (engineers want to study everything first LOL).

I am still keeping my ears and eyes open to learning as much as I can and might get a chance to use it someday.

Hi Marion, I’m having difficulty trying to PM you on Facebook. Please email me: office@appsability.com so we can connect. I’m also on skype, so we could speak on the phone. Regards, Elizabeth

  @annfurnivall – Thanks for your comments Ann at greenoak. I couldn’t agree more with you about the changes brought about by the Mobile Phone.  I just saw an article saying that next year, more Internet searches will be coming from Mobile Phones than desktop PCs.  I also believe that were just scratching the surface with what we will be doing with our Phones in the next few years.  I’m not planning to buy another PC as I expect these Smartphones to become my PC with ports to connect to my monitor and keyboard making today’s PC a Model T in the coming future!

@annfurnivall @sms4sale  @whitsonn @fredericgonzalo @amyhallbiz 
and everyone on this feed – I agree with Ron Creigier, definitely the way to go, everywhere you go people are using their mobiles and tablets and the numbers are growing enormously and set to double in 2013. My platform supplies QR (quick response) codes for every page, you can have an unlimited number of pages and QR codes, submission to the AppStore and Google Play, push notifications to connect easily with your clients/customers/members and I also offer SMS for marketing if you prefer. Plus I offer customised apps and you can choose to have  customised icons if you wish. Full customisation is offered and you can also build your own app easily and very affordably from $20 a month fully hosted and no set-up fee! Visit appsability.com and by all means if there is something you would like not mentioned or need  assistance don’t hesitate to contact me – use the email there to contact me directly. I also create stunning customised websites – buildawebforyou.com