There are many mobile initiatives that are targeted to users of smartphones, despite the fact that the majority of Americans have feature phones. Do marketers have a legitimate strategy in neglecting more than half of the mobile market?

While a whopping 60 million Americans have smartphones, more than half of U.S. mobile subscribers own feature phones without advanced application capabilities. While some marketers argue that smartphone users are more likely to engage with marketing and promotions on their devices, others claim that neglecting feature phone owners is a mistake.

?Smartphone users are not necessarily more likely [than feature phone users] to engage with marketing and promotions on their devices,? said Anthony Iacovone, chief innovation officer of Augme Technologies, New York.
 
?While smartphones allow us to provide advanced features, non-smartphone and even non-Web-enabled users make a good part of the coupon users in the U.S.,? he said. ?The most likely reason marketers are targeting smartphone users is they are not aware of the coupon capabilities that can play across all devices.?

Forget apps, opt for Web?
By creating mobile Web sites that are viewable on all Web-enabled mobile devices and not just smartphones is one way Augme Technologies believes that brands could expand their reach.

The company said the mobile Web has greater reach than smartphone applications. Brands can have different versions of their sites: content and functionality-rich versions for smartphone users and stripped-down versions for feature phone users.

For example, News America Marketing has launched an initiative that allows shoppers to access the same browsing and coupon selection it offers on the Internet on their mobile devices, with content, navigation and interactive screens formatted specifically for each individual Web-enabled device.

Therefore, the company can reach smartphone and feature phone users.

News America Marketing is a publisher of coupons in the United States and Canada, producing more than 165 billion coupons annually.

But not all marketers can afford to build different versions of their sites and some do not feel the need. The best bet is to figure out the target audience and what types of phones they are most likely to be using.

So, a company selling laptops that is targeting tech-savvy consumers may opt for a smartphone-optimized Web site or an application, while a life insurance company targeting Baby Boomers might opt for a WAP site.

Smartphone defense
Regardless of the audience that is available on feature phones, many big brands and retailers are ignoring this market segment.

IPhone, Android and other smartphone devices might be a small part of the overall mobile phone market, but consumers who use these devices make up about 50 percent of mobile Web activity and are the vast majority of clickers on ads.

Additionally, when it comes to smartphone applications, Zokem research found that apps are taking more face time over the course of the whole day than the mobile Web browser. So, that may be one of the reasons that brands opt for an application as opposed to a WAP site.

What is also interesting is that smartphone users do more with their devices. In fact, research from Interpret found that 45 percent of smartphone owners access social networks on their device.

The marriage of mobile and social media is evident and that is another reason why brands opt to reach the smartphone audience.

Also, smartphone owners are avid mobile coupon users.

A global survey by Accenture on mobile devices and shopping highlights how the growing use of smartphone technology has encouraged consumers to explore retail channels such as mobile to secure bargains.

Accenture found that smartphone users find it useful to download money-off coupons to their phones (79 percent) and receive instant money-off coupons as they pass by an item in a store (73 percent), according to the study.

As mobile phones become smarter and the smartphones of today turn into the feature phones of tomorrow, some might argue that targeting feature phone users is a waste of time.

Simple technology
But the harsh reality is that some brands that do not target feature phones with promotions risk missing out on a large chunk of their audience.

An easy way for brands that have a target audience that uses all types of different mobile devices is to use a channel that is ubiquitous such as SMS or QR codes, along with more advanced mediums such as applications and HTML5 ads.

Using SMS or QR codes, brands could market mobile sampling programs and direct-to-card couponing capabilities, as well as build loyalty databases and communicate via push notifications to keep consumers up to date.

Ninety-five percent of existing mobile contracts have SMS built into the agreement and more than 90 percent of text messages are opened and read compared to less than 40 percent of all email solicitations.

SinglePoint found that 90 percent of text messages are read within three minutes of delivery and that the recipient eventually reads more than 99 percent of all text messages.

The universal accessibility and usage of SMS, combined with the ability to provide information in real-time, creates opportunities for marketers.

Anytime, anywhere
Smartphone users are not the only consumers that find a benefit in being able to access information and coupons anytime, anywhere.

In fact, that was News Marketing America?s strategy behind taking its digital and print offerings and making them mobile and available to both smartphone and feature phone users.

By taking the company?s products and making them available via mobile browsing expands the market base to select their coupons at any time from the computer they always have with them ? their mobile phone.

?Smartphones allow us to be a lot more creative, but again that does not mean we alienate 150 million-plus other consumers,? Mr. Iacovone said. ?There are tens of millions of feature phones that are Web-enabled, allowing us to provide a solid creative experience.

?For very old devices, SMS is logically the best choice,? he said.