Marketing Matters

>>Some companies are SETE and saying TYVM to customers these days.

That's text-messaging lingo for "smiling ear to ear" and "thank you very much," and businesses are finding it's one way to reach on-the-go customers. Mobile marketing uses wireless media, mostly in conjunction with traditional print, TV and radio advertising, billboards and signs to boost business.

Few companies in Southwest Florida are embracing it yet, but it's gained enough momentum in the United States to result in national mobile marketing revenues of $45 million last year, a figure expected to climb to $1.5 billion by the year 2010, according to Toronto-based RBC Capital Markets. Giants such as McDonald's and Hershey's have run contests and promotions using text messaging, and TV shows such as American Idol ask folks to vote via cell phone.

"We're seeing more and more different things out there. But it's still not mainstream," says Rick Szatkowski, vice president of business development for Fort Myers-based NeoMedia Technologies, which is partnering with Gulfshore Business on a mobile-marketing trial.

The concept is like direct mail or an e-mail campaign, but companies can reach people when they're "out interacting with the physical world," says Dan Miller, vice president of mobile solutions for Neighborhood America. Miller is also co-founder and CEO of MOVO Mobile, which was acquired last fall by the Naples-based company. "Today the call to action is, 'Visit our Web site.' In 18 months to two years, 'Send a text message' will be on everything," he says.

Neighborhood America and NeoMedia clients are national and international in scope. In the United States alone, the companies have 225 million cell phone subscribers to tap into. Most have text-messaging capability, although fewer have Web-enabled phones, needed for some mobile-marketing tools.