ChaCha. Ask Away.

Think of a funnel. Do you see it? At the top of the funnel are 90% of all teens and young adults who send up to 3,000 text messages per month. Ok, now picture the bottom of the funnel — its the mobile Web and iPhone applications — very powerful conversion tools for driving brand affinity, direct response and even purchases but only reach about 15% of all cell phone users.

As a marketer, you can make the funnel work magic for you because SMS advertising reaches virtually everyone and engages customers to do virtually anything. Add in device targeting and you start to get the picture.

When fully leveraged, SMS advertising can:

1. Engage customers in a text-based mobile conversation
2. Drive customers to call, click, provide email addresses, respond to text based surveys, play SMS games or even come into a store to redeem a coupon
3. Visit mobile web sites or download apps

Now that device targeting is a reality — marketers can leverage SMS to engage and drive action among the greatest number of customers, and when the device is known — drive customers to the mobile web, a new iPhone application or Blackberry app.

Mobile is becoming a bigger element of marketing campaigns with the roll outs of mobile sites, mobile apps and mobile advertising campaigns. SMS is taking a larger % of the mobile advertising spend because of this power.

What do you think? Can you see the funnel working for your brand or service?