Large companies and brands are already using mobile marketing campaigns to engage their customers and to attract new ones, but the cost for launching such a campaign can be somewhat expensive, especially for small businesses and organizations. If a small business that has no interest in advertising on a national scale, wants to launch a small campaign targeted at the residents of their small local community, they’d have to enlist the services of a third-party or two to get it done. There’s got to be an easier way, and maybe even a way to do it yourself. If you had the hardware, software, and the know-how to launch your own mobile campaign as well as have the option to offer the same mobile campaigns to other businesses around you for a fee, it could be a win-win situation for you and your customers.
Let’s say you run a small pizza place in the downtown area of your community, and you decide you’d like to try other forms of advertising besides the more traditional radio and newspaper advertising that’s cost you so much in the past. Launching a mobile marketing campaign might be the best solution. But how would you go about it? Enlist the services of an SMS marketing provider? That would be effective, but you could end up spending a lot on per-message charges. What about launching a mobile Pay-Per-Click campaign via the numerous mobile-ad networks? Again, this could end up costing quite a bit, depending on your cost per click. What other options are there?
I’ve always been intrigued with the idea of “proximity marketing.” Especially when using it with bluetooth technology to target consumer’s mobile phones when they’re in close proximity to your business and/or organization. I know there’s some speculation as to whether this form of advertising is to intrusive and spammy, but if done correctly, I think it’s a hugely beneficial form of mobile advertising. If you can incorporate your marketing messages into useful content the end-user truly wants, and can benefit from, it’s a great way to engage your customers, attract new ones, and keep your brand and offerings in front of them as much as possible.
Going back to our pizza place example, proximity marketing could be the perfect solution. The owner could install a simple piece of hardware, provide content of any form, and have a complete mobile-marketing campaign running 24 hours a day with no on-going charges what so ever. The question is, how do you go about doing this yourself? and, how much is it going to cost?
With the proper use of open source software that’s freely available, along with a simple piece of hardware that can cost as little as $129, you can create your own “bluetooth hotspot” that can provide any content you choose to anyone with a compatible mobile phone, in an area of up to 18 miles. Not only can you advertise your product and services while still providing the user’s with useful content, but you can offer your newly created bluetooth hotspot to nearby businesses and advertisers to use for their own mobile marketing campaigns and content for a pre-determined fee. For a system that only costs $129, you could even turn a profit by becoming your own “mobile marketing agency” in your local area.
To accomplish this you have to know where to find the right software, hardware, and knowledge. In part two, I’ll discuss where to find everything you’d need, as well as setting everything up. If you’re an affiliate marketer, I’ll also go over how to use this system to your advantage to multiply your affiliate commissions. Stay tuned…
