The Mobile Marketing Association redefined “mobile marketing” this week at the Mobile Marketing Forum in Los Angeles. Here’s the new official definition:

“Mobile marketing is a set of practices that enables organizations to communicate and engage with their audience in an interactive and relevant manner through any mobile device or network.”

I love the MMA’s new definition because it encompasses all the different tools of mobile marketing that are available today and those that will become available. Also, it brings up two very important concepts: communication and engagement. After all, if a mobile phone isn’t about communication we’ve really missed the boat.

But my favorite part is the word RELEVANT because unless mobile marketing is relevant to the end user it will not work. No one wants to be marketed to, but everyone likes to have relevant information available to them.

But this definition still begs the question, what is mobile marketing … exactly? What tools are available to businesses today who want to reach their customers via mobile?

Top Four Tools of Mobile Marketing

1.
Text Messaging / SMS

This is probably the most obvious tool of mobile marketing because so many people are doing text messaging – 123 million of us in the US and 3 billion of us worldwide. It is only natural that this type of communication would attract marketers.

The most common format of text messaging as a marketing tool is mobile couponing. Offering a discount or special offer via text message. But text messaging can and should be so much more than just coupons.

Alerts, text clubs, product/service information, sending mobile site links, interactive voting, contests, text-to-donate are just a sampling of the many uses of text messaging.

2.
Mobile-Friendly Websites

Over 50 million people in the US are going online with their phones and they are expecting to get websites that work on their phone. They want to find what they need quickly and easily and get back to whatever it is they were doing. The mobile web experience is not about “browsing” it is about “finding.”

If you are not sure if your company site is mobile friendly, just go to it on your mobile phone. Preferably access it from more than one type of phone so you can see how differently it works for different people based on the phone they are using.

3.
Mobile Advertising

Much the same as there is banner advertising on the desktop version of the Internet, there are also banner ads on mobile sites. Google made news recently by buying AdMob, one of the leading mobile display ad networks, and it is safe to say that mobile display (or banner) advertising will be a much more used tool in marketing now.

Additionally there is pay per click advertising which is aligned with mobile search. A consumer searching for something their phone will see search results ads showing along with the organic listings they find. Naturally, Google is a huge player in this space as well with their Google Mobile Adwords program.

4.
Mobile Email

Each day millions of people check their email on their phone. Whether the businesses sending emails to these people intended to be mobile marketing or not, they most certainly are. Once a person is communicating and engaging with you on their mobile device you are doing mobile marketing.

Every email that is sent must be easily readable on a mobile device or become so within one click. People are deluged by email and it is not likely that they will look at your email twice. If the first opportunity to see it comes on their mobile, it darn well better work because you will not get a second chance when they are on their desktop later.

If you need help with any of these mobile marketing tools I am here to help you. Check out my Mobile Marketing QuickStart, Text Messaging Module, Mobile Web Module and/or my Strategic Thought Session.