NEW YORK – The future of marketing is here and it fits into the palm of your hand. Marketing via cell phones has begun with advertisers and marketers gearing up their mobile-marketing programs, Brandweek magazine reports.

The evolution of cell phones has enabled users to have phones with wireless access protocol (WAP)-enabled phones that give them video and Web-access. Cellular providers are now allowing advertisements to be sent to their customers. At the end of last year, Verizon Wireless and AT&T Wireless started permitting banner ads on their landing pages or “decks.” Sprint Nextel already allowed banner ads on its network. Now, marketers have 200 million people to reach.

“There's a great deal of cautious optimism,” John Hadl, creator of Procter & Gamble's Mobile Ad Lab, told the magazine. Procter & Gamble will roll out 35 mobile-based programs during the next nine months. “We know the Internet is an impactful channel for brand marketers. The mobile phone promises to deliver many of the same benefits and results.”

The newness of the medium provides marketers with only a few ways to target consumers through their phones, such as using billboards and television ads to text in codes for voting in polls (a la “American Idol”), entering contests or answering trivia contests. Others are trying out actual phone programming that will show commercials on the phone.

Sheetz convenience stores is one company that has launched a cell phone campaign. The magazine reports that chain’s “Everydayrocks” campaign uses promo codes scattered across six states from radio deejay shout-outs, business cards at rock shows, billboards and TV and cinema advertisements. The codes, which could be entered via the Internet or cell phone, gave consumers the chance to win Xbox 360s, iPod Nanos and other prizes.