Ez Texting SMS Marketing News

With the economy continuing its downward spiral, marketers, brand managers and their agencies are looking for ways to cut budgets for the remainder of 2008 and into 2009.

Looking at mobile in particular, eMarketer reports that U.S. advertisers spent $878 million dollars last year on mobile advertising, and that figure is expected to jump to $1.7 billion in 2008. Although this number is still relatively small compared to online ad spending, which reached $21.1 billion in the U.S. in 2007, it represents a great opportunity for mobile marketing companies that clearly understand the market and best practices associated with this medium.

Read on as MediaPost gives a great overview of the best practices and tips for the most successful mobile campaigns.

Some interesting news from Down Under:

Not-for-profit sexual and reproductive healthcare provider, Marie Stopes International, is encouraging young people to practise safe sex.

The organisation's "TXT 4 Free Condomz" sexual health campaign was launched to tackle rising sexually transmitted infection rates.

General manager of operations Jill Michelson said young people were often too embarrassed to buy condoms. If they text 19SEXTXT with their name and address, they will be sent two for free.

bCODE enables Pilot Mobile Loyalty Marketing for Harrah's Operating Company, Inc. bCODE, a leading global provider of end-to-end mobile marketing services, today announced a pilot mobile-marketing program for Harrah's Operating Company, Inc., the world's largest provider of branded casino entertainment.

The mobile program, branded T.I.P. (Texting Important People) by Harrah's, is currently being tested at three of Harrah's properties: Harrah's Atlantic City, Harrah's New Orleans and Showboat Atlantic City.

Read more.

T-Mobile USA Inc., the nation’s third-largest wireless carrier, has dropped its requirement for double opt-in for recurring Standard Rate commercial text messages sent to its subscribers.

The German-owned company was the last holdout from among the five major carriers including AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint Nextel and Alltel to require double opt-in. The double opt-in change was one among many that T-Mobile USA introduced.

Under T-Mobile USA’s old rule, end users who wanted to opt in to a Standard Rate program by texting a keyword to a common short code were required to reply YES to the initial welcome message.

Read more at Mobile Marketer.

We found this to be an interesting intro to a recent Mobile Insider article:

"But you always tell me how well targeted mobile marketing can be. They are supposed to know where you live, who you are, and what you want. So why are they sending my possible fiancé ads for dating?"

The writer describes a recent rise in SMS ads to his phone for dating - that, "and a lot of satellite TV pitches."

At some point in the future of digital advertising, targeted ads will be de rigeur, and so legitimate, non-paranoid-fiancee questions will arise about who sends us what kinds of pitches.

But this clearly is not the case in the fledgling SMS ad world. Companies like 4Info, ChaCha, MoVoxxx, and Limbo (the inventories I played around in) still look a lot like early search ads, very generic DM inventory served across joke lines, stock tickers, and trivia contests.

Read more via the link at the top.

Electronics retailer Best Buy has seen good results via an iPhone campaign it did targeting consumers listening to music on Pandora’s application for the smartphone.

Pandora claims accelerated user registrations, which have doubled since the launch of its iPhone application on July 11. Best Buy advertised within the application with a sponsorship screen and lay-over ads that brought consumers to the retailer’s landing page without stopping the music experience. The ads averaged 2.5 percent to 3 percent click-through daily.

Read more.

"Rosa sat so Martin could walk Martin walked so Barack could run Barack is running so our children can fly."

That 86-letter text message is being forwarded from cellphone to cellphone. It began among African Americans then went viral, posted in various blogs. Exactly when it was first sent, who sent it and how many times it has been forwarded, we don't know.

Another unknown, and a hot topic among the political digiterati: How many cellphone numbers, through its nearly 18-month-old text messaging program, are in Sen. Barack Obama's database?

Scott Goodstein, the text guru who runs the program, declines to say. Same goes for his boss, Joe Rospars, who oversees Triple O, Obama's online operation. But since the campaign has been tireless in collecting their supporters' cell numbers -- they introduced Sen. Joe Biden as Obama's vice presidential choice by text -- many guess that it's in the millions.

Read more from the Washington Post.

It seems that mobile donations are gaining more traction:

Taking a leadership role in the move to incorporate mobile technology into the world of philanthropy, the Dystonia Medical Research Foundation announced it will launch a new program designed to capture donations via text message. To power its mobile platform, the Dystonia Medical Research Foundation has partnered with Denver based Mobile Accord, Inc., the premier provider of mobile technology to the nonprofit sector.

"Virtually anyone with a mobile phone can make a donation to the Dystonia Medical Research Foundation by sending the text message "DMRF" to "90999" to make a donation of $5," says Janet Hieshetter, DMRF's Executive Director.

Read more here.

The latest from Ez Texting in the News, this time at Christianity Today:

"If you haven't heard, e-mail is so 2006. Text messages sent via cell phones are quickly becoming the communication method of choice, especially among young adults. And churches are now finding ways to integrate the medium into their ministries.

At Lake Pointe Church near Dallas, Mason Randall says his skateboarding outreach ministry has grown about 25 percent during the past year largely because of text messages sent through EZTexting.com."

Read more here.