How BIG is BIG?

Yesterday Sprint CEO Dan Hesse spoke at the UBS Global Media conference in New York City and as it happens I tuned in to the internet stream of his interview. I was pretty impressed by the data Dan shared with the audience and I was also impressed with the notion that Sprint may be turning a corner in its long turnaround efforts. The one thing I remember most vividly though, and am here to share with you today, is this data point.

There are more mobile phones than TVs, PCs and cars combined globally.

I used to tell folks that there are more mobiles than TVs and PCs combined and Dan just kicked it up a notch.

I don’t know what you think but that’s a BIG number and it presents an equally big opportunity when it comes to connecting with your customer and your audience on their mobile phones.

I’m going to hazard a guess but I will say that less than 1 in 1000 know how to reach their customer’s mobile phone. The opportunity to reach them is too large to leave to a Google search which results in your PC site not rendering on your customers phone and them not coming back. Again, the mobile web is not the PC web on a mobile phone. You must have an optimized presence and tailor your message for mobile phones. You must speak the language they speak in the places they want-this is text messaging and an optimized mobile site with your message front and center.

We should all be very excited about these numbers and trend lines. After all, mobile marketing represents something of a trifecta win for those using it.

Scale-the number speak for themselves and with the click of a mouse you can reach thousands of people who have raised their hand and said “Yes, I want to hear what you have to say on my mobile phone”.

Dynamism-it doesn’t get more dynamic than being able to change what you are messaging on the fly. Look at the use of Twitter outside of the banality of “Just finished my coffee” tweets. Real-time is where things are headed and this is more evidence of the mobile internet being about “tell me” versus the PC internet being about search.

Cost effective-statistics abound regarding the open rates on text messages, the higher recall of brand, the ROI of reaching interested customers for pennies, to say nothing of being able to have a free mobile website with services like Ruxter.

One of our site owners has spent time in Africa and he will tell you that the people there use their phone as their primary access to the internet. Do you think this could happen in the US? Research firm IDC came out today and said the 450 million worldwide who access the internet from a mobile phone will grow to over 1 billion by 2013. I’m going to bet we get there sooner.

So how BIG is BIG? Turns out BIG is very, very BIG and mobile marketing presents an opportunity to connect with your audience like none we have ever seen before and it will become the primary point of access for using the internet before you know it.

Dale Knoop is the President of Ruxter, a mobile multimedia patents holder and an industry-recognized pioneer of mobile data services. In 2005 Dale won an Emmy while serving as the GM for Sprint TV. In August 2009 he launched Ruxter which allows anyone to quickly and easily become part of the rapidly growing mobile internet with a free, fully optimized mobile website they can share with anyone. You can contact him here. Follow Ruxter on Twitter.