For many people, the mobile marketing term it is often seen simply as a form of advertisement delivered to a mobile phone from an advertising company or service. At one time, this definition might have been correct, but mobile marketing has gone far beyond the simple act of sending an ad to a mobile phone. In fact, the term mobile marketing can now be considered something of a catch-all term to cover all aspects of delivering or receiving information with your target audience via a mobile device. The Mobile Marketing Association has recently updated their definition of mobile marketing to reflect this change.

Its definition states: “Mobile marketing is a set of practices that enables organizations to communicate and interact with their audience in an interactive and relevant way through any mobile device or network.” Increasingly, mobile marketers are moving from delivering content to the consumer to a new model that is more interactive and engages with the consumer in an interesting or meaningful way.

There are many advertising methods that fall under the category of mobile marketing:

* mobile web marketing

* Services based on rent

* SMS (Short Message Service)

* MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service)

* In-game marketing

What other mobile marketing ad types and definitions do you need to know to be successful?

Mobile web marketing is running ads on websites designed specifically for mobile devices. This is a very common form of mobile ads and it has been steadily growing. Many people access the Internet through their smartphones, and these phones often do not have a full browser to view web pages. To accommodate this, website owners create custom versions of their web pages that are specifically tailored to be viewed in mobile phone browsers. Since these pages are not the same as regular web pages, new announcements are provided for them. Advertising on these mobile web pages ensures that the ads are seen by those using mobile devices. These ads will typically take the viewer to the advertiser’s mobile-optimized page if clicked. Companies like Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft are among the largest companies selling ad space on their mobile content pages, specifically on their search pages.

A location-based service is one that allows an advertiser to deliver advertisements or other information to a mobile device based on its physical location. Location-based services are offered by cellular phone networks that can track the general location of a mobile phone user through the process of triangulation. If the mobile phone user has their GPS system activated, that will also help them to identify their location in a much more specific way. Once the network can figure out where the user is, the advertiser can serve an ad based on that location. For example, if someone walks down a street with a Starbucks on the corner, the location-based service can recognize that the person is near a Starbucks and send them an advertisement for the store. A more passive version of this is to place a physical base station in a specific location. When someone approaches you and has authorized the network to send you messages, the base station can send location-specific information or announcements to your mobile device.

SMS marketing is advertisements that are served through text messages. This is a very common form of mobile marketing and it can work both ways. Advertisers can send messages to a network of mobile users at a time, while mobile users can send text messages to the advertiser’s short code. The short code is the 5 or 6 digit number that many advertisers use in their SMS communications. A common example is after the earthquake that hit Haiti, people were encouraged to text 90999. That five-digit number is the short code for the American Red Cross. Short code numbers are valid for all mobile carriers in a specific nation. They tend to be expensive, which is why they are generally used by larger companies.

MMS marketing is similar to SMS marketing, but it allows for more than just text messages. Users can send images, videos or audio, as well as texts, to the company running the campaign. In some cases, this can be used in real time, such as when Motorola teams up with House of Blues to provide real-time concert photos on a screen next to the stage.

In-game marketing is becoming more common with the rise in popularity of online gaming. One of the most common uses of in-game marketing is to provide relevant ads to a target population. For example, car companies often place in-game ads like banners in car racing games to advertise their brand or a specific car. It looks like this is part of the game, but the location has been paid for. Another form of marketing is sponsorships of events or statistics. For example, Old Spice sponsors a stat in the football game Madden 11 called Swagger. This coincided with the launch of their new deodorant, also called Swagger.

As the definition of the Mobile Marketing Association shows, mobile marketing covers a wide spectrum of activities. As mobile technology changes and grows, the definition of mobile marketing has to grow with it.