Mobile advertising: the next frontier

Fifteen years ago, some smart people decided that this whole Internet thing was more than a fad and that there would be a lot of money to be made … but they were still not sure how to do it. Those who got there early and figured it out got obscenely rich.

The next big opportunity is here and if you want to get there early, the time is now and this time the opportunity is on the device, probably in your pocket or purse … your cell phone.

The cell phone has become the dominant way that people communicate with each other and it has also become a device that offers entertainment and news. The new smartphones are truly becoming a universal remote control … for a lifetime.

So how do you make money out of it? That’s the billion dollar question.

While you are making money by providing the platforms (cell phone makers: Motorola, Apple, RIM) and the gateway (your cell phone provider: Verizon, AT&T, Sprint), it really is not where the opportunity is. The real money will go towards mobile advertising. However, just as people were hesitant to spend money online at first, advertising on phones is getting a lot of resistance from consumers right now, and response rates are woefully low.

Part of the problem is that advertisers are not adapting to the new advertising medium of mobile phones. They’re just taking what works on the internet and testing it on phones, and if their results are any indication, that just doesn’t work.

I don’t have all the answers yet, but I know this is an area well worth studying and trying to solve and if you want to make a lot of money in the near future, you ‘ll also pay attention to it. The trick, as with any market, is to figure out where you are going and get in front of it. If you can figure it out with mobile marketing, you will get rich.