SMS mobile marketing is taking off almost as quickly as the electric car – and with good reason. Cell phones are everywhere. It’s difficult to find an individual without a cell phone these days. In fact, it's estimated that there are now four times the number of cell phones than PCs worldwide.

Younger generations, in particular, have an aversion to going anywhere without their phones. This is their primary means of communication, and they text almost twice as much as they make phone calls. It stands to reason that as they mature and other technology-astute generations follow, the opportunities for mobile marketing will grow proportionally. So what does this mean for marketers looking for a leg-up today?

It comes down to extending your outreach and connection to your subscribers by integrating SMS into your existing email marketing program. This approach leverages two important realities: first, consumers make more purchases online than by cell phone; and second, texting has a higher response rate than email. (Read: SMS Marketing Boosts Email Marketing: 4 Good Reasons)

With the economy in a state of flux, consumers are grabbing at ways to save. Because of its ability to reach subscribers anywhere they are, mobile marketing lends itself to quickly and easily offering incentives through coupons, sweepstakes and draws, to name a few. It also offers marketers a channel in addition to email for staying connected with subscribers through notifications, alerts, surveys and other types of messages.

Plus, many email marketing and mobile marketing solutions on the market today provide the ability to track and correlate consumer behavioral information in a centralized system such as a customer relationship management (CRM) system. This makes it easy for marketers to obtain insight into consumer preferences and use it to further segment their marketing outreach.

Targeting your SMS mobile subscriber base with relevant and possibly even location-specific incentives increases your potential to convert browsers to buyers, even in these tough times. Or at the very least, it can help you stay connected with your subscribers in hopes of garnering a sale in the near future if not at this time.

There will always be users who are more comfortable with one medium over another. However, mobile marketing has many of the same characteristics as email marketing. Users opt in to both. Campaigns can be personalized for both. So why not take advantage of both to provide the offers and incentives your subscribers want, the way they want to receive them?

More SMS Mobile Marketing Resources:

• B2B Mobile Marketing: Yes You Can!
• SMS Mobile Marketing: 9 Tips to Get it Right
• Mobile Marketing - Jump in Now if You Want Holiday Jingle
• Mobile vs Email Marketing Best Practices - Cut from the same fabric?
• Lyris Mobile Marketing How-to Guide
• On Demand Webcast: Mobile Marketing How To - A Starter Guide for the Novice

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