Mobile phone advertising is destined to become as critical to the marketing campaigns of small business owners as Internet marketing is today.  Over five in six homes have one or more mobile phones, and studies have shown that mobile phone advertising can be significantly more effective than online advertising, at times up to 3-5 times more effective.

But, many people find it hard to understand how mobile advertising works. The media tend to focus on how the big brands use mobile advertising, which may not be relevant to the small business owner.  Below is a brief explanation of the two major types of phone ads available today. 

Text or SMS Advertising. 

With this type of mobile phone advertising, your customers or prospects ask to get text message advertisements from you.  They do this by “opting in,” with a special keyword your specify in your other forms of marketing and promotion.  You will generally engage a special mobile ad vendor to manage your text messaging program, and you typically have the option to purchase packages or just pay as you go.   

After your prospects and customers subscribe to your mobile advertising list, you send them text message advertisements (SMS) through their phones.  Those vendors who send coupons and notice of limited time discounts find great success with this form of mobile advertising.  Markets that have found good success with this type of mobile advertising are retail, entertainment venues, and restaurants. 

Search Engine Mobile Advertising.

You will find the other type of mobile advertising to be most comparable to Internet search engines.  To explain, a potential customer will be interested in some form of product or service, and do a mobile search for the item on their phone.  Your mobile advertisement appears if it is relevant to the customers search. 

Search engine databases are typically made up of merchants who are subscribers to the mobile search engine.  Although some charge per-click, most are monthly subscription only, which can be a reasonable way to get started on a budget. 

Whether you prefer SMS advertising or In Page advertising, there are affordable options available to you for mobile phone advertising. 

Be sure to visit SmallBusinessMobileAdvertising.com to learn much more about how small businesses can use mobile phone advertising to grow their business. Make sure to get your free mobile advertising trial (and mention the promo code "mobilenow" and receive double the credits during your free trial period).