1. Learn the basics of mobile marketing first. If you jump in without knowing some of the most basic requirements and regulations you could land yourself and your clients in hot water. I suggest reading the Mobile Marketing Association’s Best Practices document as your first step. A lot of it will be completely over your head the first time you read it. That’s OK. Do it anyway. Then come back to it later when you know more.

   You can also check out my Mobile Marketing QuickStart as a quick, easy, affordable way to get started in mobile marketing.

2. Read case studies and examples of mobile marketing in action. It will help to see what other businesses are doing in the mobile space. It will also get your ideas flowing about what you can do with your business. I read MobileMarketer.com every day for this very reason. You can also “Like”  the Mobile Marketing Profits Facebook page. I share case studies and mobile marketing examples there all the time.
3. Subscribe to as many text message campaigns as you can find. Use the mobile web frequently. You need to use this stuff in order to know how to sell it. If you don’t already have an unlimited data plan – get one now. Here’s your first chance:

   * * * * * * * * * *
   For a series of 10 weekly tips about mobile marketing from me:
   Text KIMD to 69302
   Message and Data Rates May Apply. You will receive one message per week for 10 weeks. You can stop receiving messages at any time.

   * * * * * * * * *

4. Start determining what you want to offer to your customers: text messaging, mobile website development, mobile coupons on demand, mobile advertising, mobile marketing strategy or a combination of some of these. You will find that your ideas will flow best around a certain type of service. Start with that.
5. Make a list of potential local business clients and brainstorm what you’d offer them. This will be so much easier if you are reading case studies and participating in mobile offers. Of course when you are ready to start acquiring clients you will not just walk in and tell them what you want to offer them, you will start first by seeing what their needs are and then show them how mobile can solve their problems.
6. Find a vendor (or most likely several) who provide the technological backbone to what you’ll sell. You’ll be looking for a text messaging company, a mobile website builder, etc. Check out my list of recommended mobile marketing vendors as a good starting point.
7. Get training. If your vendors have training – take it! If you would like step-by-step guidance in building your mobile marketing business, please check out my Mobile Marketing Business in a Box (my self-study program) or the Mobile Marketing Masters Group (a 6-week group class personally lead by Kim Dushinski).

Good luck with your mobile marketing business. Please let me know what you’re doing and how I can help.

Brian asked a lot of great questions and we covered a lot of ground in the interview titled Practical Mobile Marketing Advice for SMBs with Kim Dushinski. Enjoy!

“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.

Text messaging is a mandatory opt-in marketing channel. It is never smart or ethical to send text messages that are not explicitly requested. And in many places around the world it is illegal to do so. This explicit permission is not granted simply by being a customer or giving a business a cell phone number for other purposes.

Opting in has very specific criteria. You have to get someone to text in to opt in, sign up online with using a fill in the blank form or reply “Yes” when you have gotten verbal permission to add them to your mobile list. None of these can be done without having a mobile marketing campaign going.

The good news is that everybody starts at zero. Fortune 500 companies and small businesses alike all start with no one in their mobile marketing database.

Even better news is that it only takes a smart marketing strategy and powerful marketing implementation to get people opting in like crazy. Give people a good reason to sign up and make sure they know all about it and your campaign is underway. Your text message database is being built.

Waiting to start mobile marketing until you have a mobile database is impossible. You cannot build a mobile marketing database without doing mobile marketing.

Shout out to my friend Chris Torbit with SmartReply who coined the phrase “everybody starts at zero.”

In today’s market, consumers are thinking twice before they buy almost anything.  “How much do I need it?” “Do I need it all, or do I just want it?” “It is on sale?” Questions people ask when they’re uncertain about their own economic futures.

This “Is it on sale?” thinking presents an ideal opportunity for mobile marketing to worried consumers.  For example, if a consumer has a genuine need and desire for a purchase more complex or higher value than an impulse buy – anything from an upgraded mobile phone to a new car – they may repeatedly pass up that item at full price, or even with some discounting.  Stretching their spending dollars by waiting for a better deal is a safer move in a tight economy.

But what if that same consumer were to receive a coupon on their mobile phone while they were out shopping? Not a printed coupon sitting at home with the unopened mail, or an email coupon waiting in a distant inbox to be printed out and stuck in a purse or a pocket.  Rather, a targeted offer made to the right consumer at the right time, in the right place.

This sort of precision targeting has been the promise of mobile marketing for many years, but few companies have yet to fully leverage such a strategy today.  Confusing opt-in/op-out rules for commercial SMS messages, platform compatibility issues with sending MMS coupons to different families of smartphones, divergent carrier support for standards and commercial traffic – all of these factors and more have served to discourage corporate involvement in robust mobile couponing.

Yet there are best practices and design solutions which can work with all of these impediments to transform them into success factors.  An inbound mobile marketing campaign driven by point-of-sale signage and advertising placements combines the consumer opt-in process with the marketing contact.  Use of well crafted standard SMS messages (text-only) sidesteps MMS and barcode compatibility issues to reach all SMS-capable phones.  Even minimal integration between the messaging gateway provider and your own retail management systems can provide end-to-end accountability and realtime program ROI.

You as a mobile marketer need to keep the following things in mind when pursuing this kind of program:

1. How will the consumer become aware of your campaign?
2. How will you obtain their permission to interact?
3. How will the offer be redeemed at the point of sale?

By offering consumers mobile coupons, businesses can create stronger customer relationships while giving consumers what they want, resulting in increased satisfaction, and increased profitability.

Here’s what I need help with:

1)
Put sales letters onto WordPress page

I will provide you with a written sales letter that I will ask you to put on a page in WordPress. You will need to create a product-specific sales letter page and also put the product on the Products Catalog page. I will provide you with a template you can use to easily design the page using WordPress HTML Editor. You do not need to create any graphics, just be able to use the ones already available.

2)
Create product delivery page

I will provide you with a selection of downloadable files (MP3s and PDFs) and you will create a password protected page on my WordPress site where customers can go to download their product after purchase. I have a basic design you can follow, but I would love it if you were able to upgrade the look and feel of the product delivery page.

3)
Set up 1Shopping Cart to deliver products

I need you to set up a product in 1ShoppingCart and the corresponding autoresponder that ensures clients get immediate access to the downloadable products they purchase.

4)
Put product Autoresponder series into 1ShoppingCart

I will provide you a Word document with a series of autoresponders that I will want you to input into 1 Shopping Cart. You will also need to set it up so that when a client purchases a product that they are moved off that product’s sales autoresponder and placed on the customer one for that product.

5)
Set up Affiliate Program

Set up 1ShoppingCart affiliate program in such a way that when affiliates send people to my site that they get tagged when someone signs up for the free offer and then earns affiliate commission on any purchase made at any time. An affiliate program is already created, it is just not working exactly the way I want it to work. Currently, I’m having to manually adjust things when sales are made.

TIME FRAME:

During the month of August I will have 6 products that I will need each of the tasks done for. It is likely that most of the work will fall into the last 2 weeks of August.

I will make a decision about who to work with over the weekend, so please respond by Friday, July 31st if you are interested.

MUST HAVE SKILLS:

WordPress
1ShoppingCart
English speaking

PLEASE RESPOND VIA EMAIL WITH:

• Your rates – do you have hourly rates, package rates or retainer rates
• Time estimate – if you are hourly, please give an estimate range
• Your availability – do you have time in August to devote to this work?
• References – at least three clients (Past or current is fine) I can contact to ask about your work
• Other services you provide

MY CONTACT INFO IS HERE:

http://mobilemarketingprofits.com/contact-us/

Not sure how, but I had forgotten about this comment that was made to me immediately after my talk at The System Seminar in March. Today I was reminded of it when Billye Thompson sent out this email about my call tomorrow night as a part of his Ultralist Jam Session.

In this series of free calls (free to listen live or $77 to get the recordings) you can hear amazing folks like David Bullock, Shama Hyder, Gina Bell, Marc Harty, Shannon Cherry, Lou Bartone and me talk about how to build your list.

Each of us has our own take and specialty around how to build your list. Of course I will be talking about how to build your SMS (text message) list and how to use SMS to build your email list.

Check it out at Ultralist Jam Session.

Click here if you want to learn more Text Messaging for Internet Marketers

Here is my commentary on the Superbowl’s Mobile Ads and Mobile Misses. In it I award “The Best Mobile Ad of the Superbowl,” talk about which company showed they understand our love of mobile, examine how mobile is a direct response tool and point out the two big mobile misses.

Please share your thoughts about this video and what you thought of the mobile commercials.

Big thanks to Ken McCarthy of The System Seminar for producing this video with me.

Submit your mobile link here.

That’s right. It’s time to start building a list of people with whom you can communicate by text message. If you do it now you will be among the first to do so and will reap the rewards of jumping in early. (Remember how the first folks to build massive email lists cashed in with their list? You can do that now with text messaging.)

In case you are thinking that text messaging is a fad or something that only teenagers do – did you know that more people worldwide use text messaging than use email? What about the fact that 80% of the US population has a cell phone and virtually all of them are text message capable? In fact, 75 Billion text messages are sent in the US alone each month.

Oh, and wrap your head around this one – text messages are known to have an open rate in the high 90% range.

Just like when you first started your email list there are some basics you need to know and one very important step that will make sure you are successful.

Here’s what you need to know:

Text Messaging is an Opt-In Process

First, as my colleague Chris Torbit from Blast Companies always says, “Everybody starts at zero.” There are no lists of cell phone numbers you can buy to just get started sending out messages. Text messaging is a mandatory, no-exceptions-allowed-period, OPT IN process. If you are going to send a text message to someone, they must initiate the relationship by opting in.

There are two ways that people can opt in to your text message list. One, they can use their cell phone to text in your keyword to your short code or two, they can sign up online through a fill in the blank sign up form similar to the one you probably use for your email list.

They key to building a successful list is offering something of such compelling value that they will want to sign up to get text messages from you. (More about this in a minute.)

You Need a Text Messaging Company

Much the same as you don’t manually email your customers through your personal email account, you won’t do the same with text messaging. You’ll use the equivalent of an Aweber or Constant Contact service that will handle it all for you. These are text message companies.

While you can lease your own short code it is very expensive ($500-$1000 per month with a 3 month minimum) and untimely (it takes 6-8 weeks to get your campaigns approved by the cell phone carriers). I suggest finding a shared short code vendor.

A few I can recommend are Mobivity, i2SMS, Clickatell and mobileStorm. They have a wide variety of services and prices, so you will probably want to look into each of them before selecting one.

What to Send to Your List

You may be thinking that you don’t know what you could possibly send via text message to a list of your prospects, customers or subscribers. After all, there are only 160 characters you can use. But the reality is there are lots of things you can send. Here are some ideas:

•
Reminders of upcoming events, teleseminars, workshops, deadlines, price increases or even reminders to read your blog posts.

•
Short tidbits of useful information. Think of this as sending out a single bullet point at a time.

•
Coupons or sales. You could have a special short notice sale or price decrease that only your text message list members will know about.

•
Voting / Polling. With two-way text messaging you have the ability to ask your list to vote on a poll and you’ll get the response instantly.

You will want to stay focused on providing excellent value to people when using text messaging. After all, you are communicating with them on the most personal media device we’ve ever known. There is a lot of room for error and ticking people off. Be very aware of offering and providing solid VALUE to your list. (Here are some posts I’ve written about providing value via mobile marketing.)

Critical Action Step for your Text Message List Building

The key here is action. If you are going to be ahead of the curve with this, you need to get going. Once the word is out everyone will start building text message lists and it will get harder and harder to get people to sign up. You want them on YOUR list first. Don’t wait on this one. Trust me, get started now.

* * * * *

Since I’ve always liked when people practice what they preach, here is how to sign up for my text message list.

Also, I’m offering a Two-Hour TeleSeminar Workshop on Wednesday, September 24th called How to Build Your Text Messaging List: 3 Steps to Get Started Today. Find out more about that here.