The Mobile Marketing Potential [INFOGRAPHIC]

You’ve probably seen this headline or something like it: “Mobile marketing is taking over.”

With an increasing number of people carrying smartphones in their pockets, marketers have the potential to catch them at any moment.

There are four billion mobile phones being used around the globe, according to an infographic by Microsoft Tag. Out of those, 1.08 billion are smartphones and 3.05 billion have text messaging technology.

By 2014, it is expected that there will be more mobile internet users than desktop internet users.

Americans spend more time socializing on their mobile phones per day than they do eating. The average is 2.7 hours for the former — twice that of the latter. More than one-third of Facebook’s members are on mobile phones, compared to 50 percent of Twitter users.

In terms of the demographics, the infographic says that “women aged 35 to 54 are the most active group in mobile socialization.”

If marketers want to reach consumers, mobile seems the way to go. While 88 percent of emails go unopened, 98 percent of SMS and MMS messages are opened.

The goal for marketers should be to make their mobile campaigns social.

“If you’re running both social media and mobile campaigns and you’re considering the synergies between mobile and social, great,” says Search Engine Land’s Bryson Meunier. “If you’re choosing to experiment with one or the other this year, take the rest of the year to plan for how your mobile campaigns will include social media and social media campaigns will include mobile.”

Along with keeping campaigns social, mobile marketing should stay local, says Tim Hayden, the chief marketing office and co-founder of 44Doors. For example, if a company is sending out recipe content to mobile phone users, they should make sure the ingredients can be found at a local grocery store.