Text Message Marketing For Business

Mobile Marketing Today

Mobile marketing generally describes marketing on or with a mobile device, such as a cellular phones, tablets, or laptops.  One of the unique features of mobile marketing is that it is often user-initiated and user-controlled, and requires the express consent of the user to receive future communications.  Approximately 4.6 billion cell-phones exist globally, compared to 1.1 billion computers. Cellular phones currently outnumber TV sets by over 3 to 1, and PC based internet users by over 4 to 1, and the total laptop and desktop PC population by nearly 5 to 1. Therefore, it is hard to ignore this trend as a means of generating revenue for your business or for yourself.

Text Messaging For Business

Text messaging, also known as Short Message Service (SMS), has been in use since approximately 1992, and is limited to 140 bytes per message, or about 160 characters in the English alphabet. SMS is popular in Europe, Asia (though in Japan SMS has been largely superseded by mobile internet email), the United States, Australia and New Zealand, and is growing in popularity in Africa. About 3.5 billion text messages are sent everyday.

SMS has several advantages over email, something exploitable by marketers. For one, the existing regulatory framework still keeps SMS uncluttered and spam-free. SMS is also the one form of communication that many people are tethered to 24/7, and cannot do without.  Where email in boxes fill up with loads of marketing messages that will be deleted and never read, 97% of text-messages are opened, with 83% of those opened within one hour of being sent. One of the most notable text-marketing campaigns occurred during the 2008 presidential campaign, when President Obama stated he would use SMS as one of the means to announce his selection of Joe Biden as his running mate. Approximately 2.9 million users registered to receive the notification, and though CNN scooped the nation on television prior to SMS announcement being sent, the Obama campaign was able to use the 2.9 million cell-phone numbers acquired for further campaign marketing and for fundraising.  The publicity of this event was noted, and afterward there was an uptick in SMS marketing throughout the country.

Mobile Marketing The Future Internet

SMS has become the most widely used mobile marketing tool used by the retail and Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) industry. SMS marketing is effective because the message is sent directly to the target audience, and can be used for a number of areas, such as recruiting, marketing, customer care services, etc. Bulk SMS has also become important for reaching enormous markets with large numbers of potential customers in a short period of time. Just one click allows a business person to send a text-message containing a product description, price, or any other relevant information .