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This is not “brand new” news, but it is news small businesses should be taking note of and considering ways to utilize it for their marketing efforts.

Your target market watches television, listens to the radio, observes roadside billboards and building banners, reads newspapers and magazines, reads ads in their email and on the internet… seems it doesn’t matter what they are doing, if they are awake, they are exposed to marketing at some time, if not most of the time. And then, just when you thought marketers had run out of ideas how to expose their ideas to you, along came the smartphone.

Mobile phone users are increasingly switching to phones with added features like larger touch screens, internet connectivity, ease of using social media applications such as Twitter and Facebook, email, etc. The days of just using your phone for calls is over. The days of just expecting to receive calls on your phone is also over. These days you don’t need to concern yourself only with getting your website up on the internet, you have to have your website accessible through a smartphone or lose customers who will find your competition instead. Busy people with smartphones don’t have to wait until they get back to the office or their home computer to browse the internet to buy goods and services.

In 2010 and onwards, our attention will turn to maximizing our use of smartphones to access our customers. More and more businesses will be developing mobile websites, taking advantage of the increase in mobile broadband services. Today and tomorrow’s mobile phones are yesterday’s laptops and notebooks. Furthermore, more people use mobile phones than laptops – think of teenagers and the elderly. This means more people can access the internet at any time now. Google and Yahoo are already strong browsing presences.

Mobile phone marketing started to become popular in the 2000’s via the introduction of SMS, Short Message Service. In those early days businesses collected mobile phone numbers to send marketing that was often spam related, but it was the start of bigger things to come.

Now, SMS is a recognized modus operandi for marketing, and the good news is advertising via mobile phones is better policed and not beset with the problems faced by internet email. Phone carriers take responsibility for what travels over their networks and have guidelines that advertisers must follow. And while some countries also have marketing associations specific to mobile phones who set guidelines for legitimate businesses to follow, there are still some unscrupulous marketers who use SMS to send spam. The good news is more and more mobile service providers are putting strict guidelines in place and enforcing them, making mobile marketing respectable.You may have noticed the advertising on TV encouraging people to subscribe to certain mobile phone services. People have to “opt in” to receive the advertising or service but they are also given the means for unsubscribing, usually by SMSing the word “stop”. Then there is MSS (multimedia message service) mobile marketing, which can include images, audio and video as well as text. This ability has seen an increase in marketers delivering their message through sponsorship of “free” games that are available for download on mobile phones.Another trend for SMS is using it to send clients reminders. For example, Doctors remind patients of appointments, as do hairdressers, reducing no-shows by as much as 70%. Small operators can send their own reminders, and there are web to SMS services (which can be set up and used from over 200 countries) who can provide your text messaging requirements. (Do a web search on Web to SMS for companies who provide this service in your area.) Other examples for use: Real estate agencies can use this for updating buyers and sellers on new properties; traders can update their clients on live pricing information; and any organization can stay in touch with their clients, employees, students, etc.

You can ask your new and existing clients if they would like to be kept in touch by SMS when you have special offers, new events, etc. and know that unlike email that can get lost in cyperspace or swallowed by spam filters, they will receive your messages.

In your advertising you can ask potential customers to sign up for more info and receive it by SMS. If you used your newsletters predominantly to market to your customers, you can save time and money by sending short messages via SMS instead.

So start focusing attention on how you can take advantage of this growing trend because it is the way of the future.