The mobile landscape can be effectively viewed as a pyramid made up of three components: SMS/Text campaigns, Mobile Websites, and Mobile Apps. Each of these components is a separate discipline that requires its own distinct strategy and unique consideration in a company’s marketing strategy.

SMS/Text: “Text Haiti to 12345″ is the most prominent example of this type of campaign. SMS campaigns have wide distribution channels, as virtually all mobile phones can be used to send and receive text messages. The richness of the experience keeps SMS campaigns low on the pyramid, however, as text messages are limited in both functionality and engagement. These limitations place SMS/Texting campaigns at the bottom of the pyramid.

Mobile Web: The mobile web’s distribution is almost as wide as that of SMS/Text messages. The majority of phones on the market today come with built-in web browsers. Each phone’s implementation of the web browser varies, however, meaning there is far more fragmentation among mobile device browsers than there is among desktop browsers. So although distribution is wide for mobile websites, that distribution is also highly fragmented, a consideration that must be taken into account when contemplating mobile strategy.

Mobile Apps: Apps are software, and just like on the desktop, they must be installed on the device to work. Hence the popularity of Apple’s iTunes App Store, where apps can be searched for and installed by users. Since apps are software, they are restricted to smartphones, which makes their distribution much narrower than SMS/Texting or mobile websites. Conversely, because apps are software, they can seamlessly interact with devices by accessing features and functionality such as the phone’s address book, camera, GPS, gyroscope, accelerometer, and more. This makes the user experience deeply engaging, as the app can control many aspects of the phone’s functionality and allows developers to tie disparate features together in innovative ways, such as the GPS and the camera.

PointAbout specializes in enterprise mobile web and mobile app development, which leverages the mobile pyramid when considering enterprise goals and budget.