The phrase “mobile marketing” is open to interpretation. It means a lot of different things to different people, and it is used in a lot of different ways. Mobile marketing is about reaching out to your audience on their cell phones, through text messages or mobile websites. The tips in this article can help you to see how mobile marketing can work for you.

As a mobile marketer, you should understand how the mobile devices are set up in order to properly understand how to create your sites and other advertising material. Try using different mobile devices to learn what your consumers will need to do.

The most effective mobile marketing strategies implement changes gradually. Take this same approach. Start with texting, progress to calling, proceed a bit further to videos and maintain this progression as you build your social network and expand your mobile marketing empire as far as it can reach. Use all that you have.

Be wary of the time of day you text your customers. Not too late not too early. No matter what you are offering, it is not worth the risk of upsetting a customer by waking them up.

Add directions and maps to your site that can be used on all mobile devices. It’s likely your users will be on a mobile device when looking for your location. Make yourself accessible. Ensure that your maps can be easily read on the small screen of the average mobile device. Create a link that gives your visitor the option to use some of the more popular direction sites.

You should elevate your presence on the top social networking services. You want your business to be seen. Focus on the fundamentals of social media, then move on from there. Consider starting with Facebook and Foursquare and then growing your social networking presence from there.

You need a solid database. Avoid adding nothing but mobile numbers to your database. It is important to ask them for permission before you start. Permission can be obtained through a form over the Internet or by text.

Sending offers out too frequently can turn some of your customers off. There is evidence to suggest that the most effective messaging frequency is from once weekly to no more than three per month. Create a sense of urgency and let your customers know that failure to act may cause them to miss out on a great deal. Customers are more likely to ignore a deal if they know another one is going to arrive shortly.

Before you go live with your mobile marketing campaign, be sure to test your advertisement first. Your campaign will not work if your messages do not display properly or have other problems. Try sending the messages to your friends and people you work with to see what they have to say.

If you use social media networking to help market your business, make sure you include the link on your site. Different customers will come from different referring sites, and you do not want to limit their ability to find you easily.

Whenever you are promoting an event, make sure to use multiple marketing mediums. For instance, send direct mail containing information on an event, like a 50% off sale. Email your customers a little while before the event, then send then an SMS on the day of the event.

If you make it easy to share your mobile marketing, your clients probably will. Before you send out your promotion, make certain that it will be easy to forward. To give them a little encouragement to forward it, offer an incentive to the one who receives the ad.

Always strive to create advertisements that have the potential to go viral, thereby maximizing their effectiveness. They just might pass it on to their friends and greatly increase your mobile marketing reach.

Focus on understanding your customers. Your mobile marketing ads should be designed based on what your target demographic likes to read and see. If you don’t understand what your customers want, how can you deliver it to them? The more informed you are about your potential buyers, the more successful you will be in promoting and selling your product or service to them.

Initiate a feedback mechanism on your ads, so your mobile marketing customers can indicate their level of satisfaction with your services. Many people tell you to get away, but you need to survey your clients as much as possible.

If you incorporate links in your mobile messaging campaign, make the link back to the mobile site for older model cell phones and link to the desktop-based website for smart phone and tablets that are capable of handling it. However, if your website contains Flash programming or other highly mobile-unfriendly content, link only to the mobile version.

In the field of social marketing, it is important to keep a close eye on your competition. To truly gain an edge, you need to make your campaign or site stand out from all of your competitors.

Instead of sharing short codes, buy them for your individual use. Although it can be expensive — approximately $2,000 — it is possible to link them to your brand. At some point, your short code will be recognized and people will associate it with your company. It is a small price to pay to avoid legal problems, too. If the company that shares the code engages in unethical practices, you may be in trouble as well.

QR codes are a smart way to provide interactive content to your customers. QR codes are great in sharing promotions, discounts and coupons. These codes are easy to implement for the vendor and easy for customers to capture with a phone camera. QR codes enable you to make fast and easy contact with your customers while providing them with important information.

To reiterate, the definition of mobile marketing depends on the definer’s sense of the term. There is no right or wrong concept of mobile marketing, but it’s best to approach the subject understanding the general idea that marketing to cell phones is essential. By using what you have learned in the article above, you can now start to understand ways in which mobile marketing can benefit your business needs.