Before everyone had cellphones, most direct marketing was tied to specific locations. Direct marketers reached people at addresses or phone numbers that a group of people usually shared. A marketer s ability to communicate with people largely depended on people actually being at specific places. Marketers were forced to anticipate where people were, at whatever time they wanted to reach them. If people moved, went on vacation, or were just out and about, they were unavailable to receive our marketing messages.
Now, in a world where most adults (as well as many children and teens) have cellphones, we can more easily reach exactly who we are looking for, when we want to market to them. This is because mobile phone numbers are assigned to specific people instead of specific locations, and they are rarely used by more than one person. Mobile phones go with people when they move, go on vacation, or just go out to run errands.
This means we have more opportunity, as marketers, to reach the people we are trying to market to and less risk that our message will be screened out or lost by those who are not the intended recipient. We can spend less time simply trying to reach the person with our offer and more time crafting a persuasive marketing message and a meaningful call to action.
