I had to take a step back when I saw this headline in my excite page: “Kenya’s Elephants Send Text Messages to Rangers” — Yes, it’s true that mobile phone cards inserted in elephants in Kenya, who have been known to raid villagers’ crops during harvest, sometimes wiping out six months of income at a time, are now sending text alerts when they are heading for a farm in Kenya. This allows the rangers enough time to frighten the bull elephants back and away from the farm. Can you believe it? I can. Very cool (I hope those rangers have their phones on all the time…).

Meanwhile, in a nearby US town, a burrito joint sends a text alert announcing $1 chimichanga’s and a free soda with orders of $5 to a loyal client base around 11:00AM on a Monday morning to re-energize a slow lunch day for the family-owned Mexican restaurant.

Whatever the scenario, mobile marketing is here and lighting up our phones in record numbers. As a matter of fact, new mobile ad spending projections seem to appear every day. One company predicts that advertisers worldwide will spend $2.4B on mobile in 2009, up from $1B this year (Strategy Analytics). Furthermore, mobile is suggested to be at a point that internet was 10 years ago – now, even with classes at universities teaching mobile marketing.

Are you implementing a mobile marketing strategy? If not, are you thinking about one? How could your business benefit from mobile marketing?