The growth in text messaging is remarkable. A decade ago, it was virtually non-existent. Today, about 30 percent of the 217 million U.S. cell phone subscribers send at least one text message a month. Of course, that group includes grandparents who are unlikely to text so the numbers amongst Millennials is even higher. Indeed, over 55 percent of 13 to 24 year old subscribers regularly send text messages.

It’s no secret that marketers of job opportunities tend to adopt media techniques more slowly than marketers of products and services. Given the vastly smaller advertising budgets in place for most human resource than marketing departments, the slower, more conservative approach exhibited by human resource marketers makes good economic sense. When we talk with clients about cell phone text messaging, one of the most common concerns that we hear is their fear of annoying the recipients. I’m a 41 year old Gen X’er and if I were to suddenly start receiving job offers or any other commercial messages to my Crackberry, well, I’d be annoyed. But we’re not talking about texting people like me who are old to remember when cell phones didn’t exist and we’re not talking about people like me who haven’t opted in to receive such messages. Rather, we’re talking about young adults who grew up with cell phones, typically send and receive multiple messages per day, and who have opted in to receive such messages. According to research company Yankee Group, 42 percent of all cell phone subscribers would welcome receiving an advertisement to their mobile phones if that message were relevant to their interests. That percentage is surely even higher for Millennials.

How big of a deal is this? So far, pretty tiny. In 2005, all cell phone text and video messaging combined was only $45 million. Although that increased by more than three fold to $150 million in 2006, that’s still a drop in the bucket when compared to the $300 billion per year U.S. ad market and pretty comparable to the ad revenues generated from one Super Bowl broadcast. Moving forward though, the projected growth looks staggering. Yankee Group projects mobile marketing to be $2 billion by 2010 and $10 billion by 2015. While only a small portion of this is likely to be related to recruitment advertising, CollegeRecruiter.com has already delivered multiple cell phone text message campaigns on behalf of employers and about the same number on behalf of marketers of products and services.

One of the most popular forms of mobile marketing is text messaging as it allows the marketer of the employment opportunities, products, or services to engage the targeted recipients in a manner which is truly interactive. Dell, for example, used CollegeRecruiter.com’s targeted email service to deliver a graphical (HTML) message to a group of highly targeted candidates about an employment opportunity. Candidates were offered several response options, one of which was to type into their cell phones a five digit “short code” to request additional information. A short code is to cell phone text messaging what an email address is to email messaging or a postal address to direct mail: it provides the delivery instructions to the cellular phone carriers. Millennials have plenty of experience in responding to such advertising as does anyone who watches shows such as Big Brother and American Idol where votes texted in by viewers determine which contestants stay on the shows and which are relegated to the morning talk shows.

Marketers of products and services, being ahead of the marketers of employment opportunities, are using text messaging in a variety of ways. In addition to voting contestants off of reality TV shows, text messaging has been used by cable television network A&E to promote its Dog the Bounty Hunter show. Viewers who sent a message to the provided short code received text messages from the main character. Those viewers were then 62 percent more likely to watch the show again than viewers who did not send a text message. Would job seekers be more likely to apply if they regularly received text messages from the CEO, division head, or hiring manager even if the messages were sent to a large group of candidates, as were the messages from Dog the Bounty Hunter?

Some cell phone text messaging ads that are marginal in the world of marketing products and services would likely lead to litigation in the world of employment. Dove, for example, encouraged consumers to vote on whether women depicted on a billboard were “wrinkled” or “wonderful.”

Yet other campaigns were unlikely to offend anyone and should be adapted to employment advertising. American Express let members and potential members sign up to receive invitations to purchase highly sought after concert and movie tickets. Shouldn’t employers be building opt-in lists of cell phone numbers in their resume banks so they can send a text message to candidates who fit the desired characteristics for new job openings?

Another mobile marketing product that needs to be on the radar screen of those planning and purchasing recruitment advertising are wireless web ads. Those with web enabled phones can and do use the web even though the vast majority of web sites, including CollegeRecruiter.com, are not mobile web-enabled because users who go to those sites see the same site whether they are looking at it through their computer or cell phone browsers. Marketers who hope to successfully reach cell phone subscribers through wireless web ads must first build mobile web sites which are designed to be viewed through the much smaller screens of cell phones. These web pages are typically primarily textual and have far less content than traditional web pages. Whether it is because there is far less clutter or because the users of these sites differ, then is little debate that they interact with these web pages at a far higher level than do visitors to traditional web pages. A typical click rate for a banner ad on a traditional web page is 0.2 percent and we often see click through rates even lower than that. By contrast, three to five percent of visits to mobile web pages result in click on links to learn more or make a purchase. Although the media is new, there already are success stories. Embassy Suites spent about $300,000 on mobile banner ads to encourage customers to click to make a reservation. And click they did. The campaign generated 55,000 clicks and $3.2 million in revenue. Shouldn’t employers be designing mobile web pages designed to convert job seekers into job applicants?

Video Ads

Employers with recruitment videos can and should move those videos off of DVD’s and onto web pages and cell phones. Some employers are including their videos within their job postings on CollegeRecruiter.com but it appears that there has not yet been a recruitment video distributed via cell phones. Even if that’s true, there’s no reason to ignore the medium. Rather, let’s just look at what the marketers of products and services are doing as they tend to be ahead of those of us in recruitment advertising. Anheuser-Busch and American Express have both delivered their standard TV ads over cell phones. Sprint customers who subscribe to receive episodes of Prison Break delivered to their phones also received 10 second ads for the youth-oriented Toyota Yaris.

Games, Ring Tones, and Other Free Stuff

Cellular phone subscribers have long come to expect that their phones will come with games yet most are quickly bored by the pre-packaged games and some will pay $5 to download new games. Zagat’s dining guide and Progressive Insurance saw an opportunity and offered free games. The hitch? The games included ads for Zagat’s and Progressive. Why not a free game promoting employment opportunities?

Traffix offers free, ad-supported ring tones and movie clips. Free ring tones are also offered all over the web to those who agree to receive messages to their cell phones. Dunkin’ Donuts sent a coupon offering a 99 cent latte to Boston cell phone subscribers, increasing store traffic by 21 percent. Why haven’t employers offered free ring tones, cool graphics for the wallpaper that forms the background of your cell phone screen, or other such incentives in order to generate an opt-in list of highly sought after candidates? Those candidates can then receive a well spaced series of short messages about the employer’s industry, organization, department, and employment opportunities from the CEO, division head, or hiring manager.

The opportunities available to employers through interactive media are limitless. But there’s no need for employers to figure all of this out for themselves. Take advantage of the lessons which have already been learned by those who have been marketing their products and services through cell phone text messaging, cell phone video messaging, and other mobile marketing opportunities.