Good news from a recent MMA study: the growth of mobile marketing keeps coming. In Q3’08, there were 267 million mobiles phone users in the US, and more than 160 million of those subscribers used SMS messaging.

Why does this matter to small businesses?  Their customers have mobile phones—lots of them. (Yes, this is stating the obvious.) And they have their phones with them pretty much all of the time.  So rather than trying to reach them via a paper coupon in a mass mailer or even an email that requires the customer to be sitting at their computer, a business can send an SMS message that gets to the customers who have opted into their mobile list immediately.  And these messages are read quickly, too–generally in about 15 minutes.

A Q3′08 MMA study found that 39% of the subscribers remembered seeing some form of advertising on their phones, with SMS advertising the most recalled.  While many think that SMS messaging is dominated by the young, only 43% of those who remembered text advertising were under age 34.  (That statement would put me in the “old” category, and I—and many of my “old” friends—use SMS messaging actively.)

For small businesses, this means that their customers are likely already getting ads on their phones in some form, and they remember them.  Because mobile marketing is opt-in, customers can choose which messages they receive. And compare the convenience of receiving a special offer on a phone vs. having to find, cut out, and remember to bring a paper coupon.  I can’t count the number of times I’ve arrived at a store knowing that I had a coupon, only to realize that I didn’t have it with me.  I love the idea of having the offer right on my phone, and the discount validated by just showing it to the cashier.  And while millennials are heavy users of SMS messaging, older mobile subscribers are increasingly using text messaging, opening up the potential audience for SMS marketing messages.

I was just notified by Intuit that we won their Small Business United contest.

For those unfamiliar, see our contest entry here.

We are one of 50 winners of out 2,500 entries.

We won $5,000 + Flip camcorder + credibility from Intuit. And we now get a chance of being one of 4 winners of $10,000 or $25,000 as a finalist.

It feels good to end the week on such high notes with 2 great, new engineers and…being a WINNER.