Is mobile marketing the greatest thing that has ever happened to marketing communications? Mobile phones have become as essential to our attire as wearing underwear – think about it. Where do you go without your phone – maybe the shower? And with the details about you stored in the cookies of your mobile device, there is not a demographic about you that is hidden from a would-be marketer.

The popularity of mobile marketing is catching on as the functionality of phones broadens and social media expands. Any time you can get a large number of people engaged in a communication medium, you have opportunities for marketing. It was true of the radio during its golden age. When the television came along in the 1950s, advertising became much more visual. The land-line telephone, long a staple of communications, proved rich for telemarketing until someone got fed up with the dinner callers and convinced lawmakers to pass the Do Not Call statutes. Do you remember CDs direct mailed to your house that encouraged you to dabble in the internet for the first time? Web sites have had their own genesis with advertising, such as pop ups and banner ads. It is the natural progression to have the latest communications technology be seen as the next big thing in marketing. Currently that is the wedding of smart phone technology with social media. But it also takes some time for marketing on a new medium to come into its own. When television first burst on the scene, TV ads resembled radio advertising, with very static imagery and sound effects. It is a far cry from the constant movement of visuals in TV advertising today.

So what is the future of mobile marketing? Let me explain what happened to me just the other day. I was watching a football game when the local weather guy interrupted the game to tell me that a line of severe storms were coming my way. His radar map showed them a couple hundred miles away. He said I should be ready to take cover. I kept a passive eye on the sky, not at all concerned even though the weather guy interrupted the game about every 15 minutes to tell me that they were getting closer. When the storms actually got within 50 miles of my home, I gave up on the game because the weather guy was on the screen full time now to show where the worst of the weather was showing up on his radar map. I walked outside to see what was happening in the sky. It was getting rather dark for the middle of the afternoon. Low flying clouds were speeding across the sky and there was a bank of black clouds on the horizon. All of this was very predictable. It was just as the weather guy had been saying – a little wind, a little rain, distant thunder, pop an umbrella and enjoy the show overhead.

Then the unpredictable happened. My mobile phone got a text saying that I should take cover because a tornado had developed in the storm approaching my location. Apparently I had activated a severe weather alert app on my phone that tracks my location and sends an alert if a tornado is spotted in the vicinity. Now was not the time to be standing in my backyard with an umbrella.

I tell that story to show the potential of using the new technology. It can pinpoint my location, research my likes and dislikes based on my profile, make some assumptions about what I am doing at that moment in time and send me a marketing message at the intersection of all of this information. So if it’s Friday at 11:00 a.m. and I have liked a particular restaurant on my social media profile, and I’m in the vicinity of that restaurant, the lunch specials for the day could very easily show up as a text message on my phone. In theory, this is the marketing pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. In practice, that pot could be filled with something other than gold. We are living in the seam between two generations of thought. The up and coming generation sees the technology that would define you in real time and make suggestions on your next purchase as an extremely handy tool that streamlines the decision making process in all areas of their lives. The generation that has lived in the age of the telemarketer who annoyed them enough to sign up for a Do Not Call list sees the new technology as a gross invasion of privacy.

What is a marketer to do with all of this? I would suggest you get to know your target market very well. Do not use this medium without the permission of the user. Unwanted texts are more annoying than spam email. Get the buy in of your target before you start to use mobile messaging as a marketing tool. That can come in the form of a free app for their phone. It can also come in the form of a simple opt in sign up on your social media site or web site. For instance, if I were marketing for a car wash, I might have an opt in page on my web site where customers could get a text alert for discounts on certain days and specific hours. "$5 washes on Monday mornings before 8 a.m.” You could catch drivers on their way to work. How would you get them to the opt in page? Promote it when you are making the transaction. Tell them about the special and hand them a flyer that explains how to get signed up. Most of them will go to the opt in site before you are finished with the wash.

The other piece that needs to be remembered is that effective marketing needs to be a coordinated effort. Mobile marketing did not deem all other forms of marketing obsolete – far from it. Just like TV ads did not eliminate radio advertising, it caused brand messaging to be in concert with each other across the different mediums. Mobile marketing is no different. The message you send via mobile needs to be the same message you have on your web site and your traditional advertising. One enhances the other.

In many ways, mobile technology allows us to market 24/7 – it is never turned off. It is not dependent on prime time hours to be effective. It helps us define and find our target market, weeding out the posers. How effective can it be? That has yet to be realized, but it has the potential to be very big – possibly bigger than any marketing communications medium we have known up to this point.