Rapidly fading to an antiquated era of advertising is the tireless marketing guru toiling for hours if not days to craft unforgettable jingles and eye-catching ads for print or broadcast advertising. The era of 21st century advertising is poised for dominance by mobile marketing and its many efficient and cost-effective tools.

According ABI Research, \”Mobile marketing has the same potential to change the advertising and marketing space in the same way that the emergence of the Internet did a decade ago.\” Yet, incredibly, a vast number of businesses continue to shy away from this emergent force in contemporary marketing. Rooted in the erroneous notion that mobile marketing is the exclusive province of bottomless budgets and mega-corporations, scores of entrepreneurs and small business owners consistently fail to harness the enormous but still cost-effective potential of mobile marketing.

In recent years, the cost of launching a mobile marketing campaign has been reduced dramatically, both in terms of the affordability of turnkey platforms involved in SMS marketing and the cost of SMS dropping from $0.15 per message two years ago to about $0.07 today, with even lower rates available for larger campaigns.

Apart from the industry-wide innovations and developments that continue to make mobile marketing more affordable, there remain innumerable steps advertisers can take to personally reduce the overall expense of an otherwise invaluable mobile marketing presence.

• K.I.S.S. (keep it simple, stupid)

Crafting a successful mobile marketing campaign doesn’t require the full time assistance of a dozen hired consultants, mobile strategists, graphic designers, etc. The tools and resources to personally but professionally plan and implement an effective, affordable mobile campaign are widely available.

• Target, not blanket

The growth of mobile technology allows mobile marketers to target small but critical segments of the population rather than wide swaths of consumers, most of whom will have no need for the product or service offered. If a quality campaign is effectively targeted to a niche market, a successful mobile marketing campaign can be executed without incurring exorbitant costs.

• Planning is pivotal

Have a game plan and a time frame for your mobile marketing efforts. One of the biggest contributing factors to a blown-out bottom line is failing to adequately budget time and expenses. From the leasing length of your dedicated short codes to the duration of the campaign itself, having a plan and sticking to it ensures that even a minimal budget won’t be exceeded.

• Observe and react quickly

A watchful eye on your return on investment (ROI) is critical to any mobile marketing endeavor. Guage the efficiency and effectiveness of the plan in place and be quick on the draw to make any changes necessary to avoid wasting time, money, and opportunity.

• If you build it they will come

Plain and simple, mobile marketing requires a leap of faith. Although many old-school advertisers find it difficult to embrace mobile marketing, consumers have grown exceptionally unresponsive to traditional marketing such as billboard and television adverts, print adverts, telemarketing and email spam. If marketers who are still tentative about the prospects of mobile marketing can just resist the temptation to invest in traditional media, the leap of faith could ultimately prove an enormously rewarding decision.

For more information, check out this comprehensive whitepaper on mobile marketing and how to select an SMS vendor.