Cell phone use has expanded due to the advancement of smartphones and mobile applications, but many organizations continue to hold back on these technologies.

For example, the Daily Emerald, the University of Oregon's school paper, saw that in three years, mobile visitors increased from 2,700 to 619,000 visits per year—about a 23,000 percent increase, the Poynter Institute reported. It felt like yesterday when businesses were struggling to keep up with the online market, but now they have to face the facts: today's consumer uses their mobile devices to find information they need.

"College students are constantly on their mobile phones," Dan Reimold, an assistant professor of journalism at Saint Joseph's University, told Poynter.

Contributor Dan Caterinicchia explains that this lack of attention to mobile use is not only happening in the business world, but it is happening on college campuses, where student-run organizations do not have mobile-friendly interfaces to streamline announcements and alerts.

Businesses have the opportunity to close their mobile gap

How can colleges and other organizations benefit from this shift? Through the use of an SMS service to share new promotions, exclusive coupons and links to the website, they have the opportunity to increase revenue from another outlet.

As more of today's customers are used to using their smartphones to research, purchase or communicate with one another, keeping up with their shopping habits can be advantageous.

Text alerts are an example of a way many companies utilize their text message marketing campaign. Whenever an exclusive sale occurs, the business owner can submit a message to one location. From there, it will be transmitted to all subscribers. Swift SMS Gateway has the tools to help a company develop its own SMS marketing strategy.