This is the first post in a new series, The History Of SMS Marketing. Read all entries here.
Some have said that SMS marketing is on its way out. Little do they know that this type of marketing will be very hard to push aside.
With the advent of smartphones and ever-changing technology, it could seem plausible that other forms of marketing could develop and push SMS marketing strategies to the wayside. However, text messaging is such an engrained part of our society, much like email (which some predicted would die as well), that it’s likely SMS marketing is here to stay.
SMS marketing, which also is known as short message service, is synonymous with all types of short text messaging. It is the most widely used texting application in the world with 2.4 billion users and 74 percent of all mobile phone subscribers according to Wikipedia. As part of the Global System for Mobile Communications series of standards in 1985, SMS was a means for sending 160 characters to another mobile user. Mobile SMS marketing became widely accepted in the 2000s within Europe and Asia, when businesses began collecting cellular telephone numbers to send content. Since the characters are limited to 160 characters, advertisements are short and to the point and highly convertible.
What makes SMS marketing so successful is the customers' willingness to receive content. In order for the marketing approach to work, the customer must willingly provide their information, thus requesting content from the business. Since customers police their own networks, SMS marketing is going to users who have requested it, and therefore returns a large conversion rate.
SMS marketing is important to businesses and users, because it is simpler than MMS (MultiMedia Messaging Service). MMS is not accepted by all phones and it is not feasible across all carriers, therefore, it has technical limitations. On the other hand, SMS allows you to reach everyone. (But we will get into that more in the second part of this series).
Interesting post. In my opinion sms marketing stay alive until smartphones are not replaced by some other digital means. SMS marketing in today scenario is combined with video and being very helpful for marketing and sales and also in lead generation.
Posted by: SMS From PC Australia | June 12, 2012 at 04:05 AM