It seems that nearly everyone has a mobile device of some kind, especially ones that have online access able to view content and advertisements.

Why then, do so few people discuss mobile as a viable advertising vehicle? Could it be because of the much smaller viewable area on the device’s screen? Could it be because people are scared of using data on their mobile device, due to the potentially sky-high fees incurred by their mobile carrier? Or could it be that they simply don’t use their mobile devices for viewing media, content or other ad-supported material?

Whatever the case, mobile advertising is growing and is a very large part of the future of companies such as Google and Apple. Approximately $3.8 billion will be spent on mobile ads in one form or another this year, which provides a lot of opportunity for businesses.

This does not include social efforts, such as Foursquare, Gowalla, Google Local Mobile (organic) searches, Yelp, among other available mobile based services. As these services become more refined and widely used, additional marketing efforts and budgets will need to be allocated in order to capture the growing audience.

Solution : Start small. Make sure your Google Places account is setup.  Make sure you are on Foursquare and Gowalla. Then… setup a Google AdWords – Mobile campaign. Allocate a portion of your existing AdWords budget (you DO have an AdWords account, right??) towards the mobile campaign, and keep a close eye on it.  This shouldn’t be scary, it’s an exciting new way to connect with potential customers!

Here are some other related posts :

- Location Based Advertising, How Could It Go Wrong?
- Twitter Announces Promoted Tweets
- Online Advertising Vs. Print