16 posts categorized "Studies"

Entry By Jason Brick

As we move through 2012, even more evidence comes to light that says you should be using SMS in your marketing. Consider these figures from a Direct Marketing Association (DMA) study of 1,000 consumers in four different countries.

In the U.S., 33 percent of mobile users prefer SMS marketing to mobile web, apps and voice mail. In Germany, that number is 58 percent. In France, 60 percent of those surveyed prefer SMS. 

Understanding that this is true is one step in mastering mobile marketing. The next step is understanding why. Here are some of the most common replies from respondents to the DMA study and other marketing surveys. 

Small Footprint

SMS is short and sweet, limited to just 160 characters and readable in an instant. As compared to voice mail, apps and traditional media, this means your advertising takes less of your customers' time while still delivering your message.

Recipient-Directed

Unlike radio advertising and similar modes, the recipient gets to choose when and how he interacts with your SMS message. Compared to voice mail - which is often hard to distinguish from a regular phone call - this is more considerate of your customers' schedules.

Accessible Use

Not everybody has an Internet-enabled phone. SMS will reach the customers who have standard cell phones. Although increasingly ignored in the marketing literature, they still outnumber the app phone users.

Low/No Cost

Mobile websites take a lot of data that mobile users pay for. Though some plans will charge a few cents for incoming text messages, the cost for some users is insignificant compared to the costs for accessing a website or downloading an app.

Mobile Compatibility

Mobile web is still fraught with problems. Different screen sizes, programming and browsers mean a site optimized for iPhones might be wonky on an Android - and both are usually designed on a full-size monitor, which causes its own problems. SMS is simple and universally compatible.

"App Fatigue"

More than 100,000 apps were released last month, and the average user has 15 to 48 apps on his mobile device. An offer adding even more saturation to a user's app situation often feels like more trouble than its worth.

The bad news is that 50 percent of respondents to the same study reported they would rather not be contacted by phone at all. However, research on other forms of advertising suggests that consumers dislike bad advertising - the same people who complain about television commercials still show the funniest Super Bowl ads with their friends.

The takeaway: make your SMS marketing excellent. The better you make it, the less your opt-in list will mind - and the more they'll prefer it to other mobile options. Not sure where to get started? Check out our free SMS Marketing Resources Center.

We came across an interesting infographic from the folks at the Intuit Small Business Blog -- it presents some interesting data about the way Samll Business Owners run their business:

Check out the entire infographic (via Big Picture)

McAfee is reporting a huge spike in Android malware. As you might have guessed iOS is largely unaffected:

Malware on Android is growing rapidly enough that it's now by far the most targeted platform, McAfee said in a new study (below). The number of viruses, trojans, and other rogue pieces of code aimed at Google's platform shot up 76 percent this past spring to reach 44. While small compared to Windows, it was three times the volume of the one-time leader, Java ME, which was at 14.

...

Apple, meanwhile, remained unaffected, with no active malware that could attack a stock iPhone. The only known recorded instances so far have been four attacks on jailbroken devices that were all variants of each other. Of the major platforms, only the outgoing and much smaller webOS had the same perfect track record.

And for those of you installing 'SMS' apps, please be careful:

Some of the examples of Android malware, such as Smsmecap and Toplank, are masquerading as legitimate apps. Many of them are badged as "crimeware" that tries to profit off the user by sending premium rate text messages and effectively stealing the target's money. On other platforms, like the BlackBerry and Symbian, paid SMS attacks have also appeared in smaller volumes.

Read more at Electronista.

A research firm called Lab42 recently published the results of an interesting study of consumer QR code awareness and adoption. Some findings:

• 58% of respondents knew what a QR Code was
• Of that group 67% saw a QR Code in a magazine, 62% in a retail store, and 40% on billboards

They put together a large infographic, which you can check out at their blog.

Want to setup a QR-Code powered widget for your Ez Texting account? Check out our guide. 

Ars Technica has picked up on some interesting research releated to text messaging and its applications for the ways that cellular networks can be managed:

Human communication patterns, particularly in the form of text messages, appear to follow a pattern that's a fusion of two mathematical models. In a paper published in PNAS on Monday, researchers analyzed a large set of text messages from service providers and found most users trade over 90 percent of their messages in bursts with only one other person, followed by an exponential drop into silence. The pattern may be due to interplay between the number and priority of tasks the two parties are trying to accomplish together, and the math behind them may help service providers manage their resources.

Scientists have lately been swimming in human communication data, from emails to texts and phone calls. As more and more people get cell phones and computers, all this information is begging to be analyzed for the benefit of mobile and Internet service providers, not to mention for its value as a wider indicator of human behavior.

To see if they could identify a communication pattern, a group of researchers culled data on text messages from three different mobile service companies over the course of a month. Specifically, they were interested in the length of time between messages, and wanted to know if there is a typical pace.

When they looked at the data, they noticed that 50 percent of users send 90 percent of their text messages to the same person. Since this covered a large chunk of all the text message business, they used this subset to see how time between messages was distributed.

Read more at Ars Technica.

ABI researchers have published a new White Paper, "Mobile Marketing Strategies: Positive Trend", which discusses the growing industry of mobile marketing. According to ABI researchers, marketers have to step up and realize that as time changes, the ways to market will as well.

"The trend started with smart phones, which have reached critical mass among US mobile subscribers," ABI Research practice director for mobile marketing strategies Neil Strother has said. "These powerful devices, coupled with affordable data plans, enable people to search, browse, and watch video in ways and in volumes that have become more and more attractive to marketers."

"Viking Cooking School contacted Ez Texting to implement a couponing program for current and prospective students to boost class enrollment and establish and ongoing dialogue with their customers.In order to generate sign-ups, the school sent out an email to their existing customer database with a link to Ez Texting’s custom Web widget to opt-in and also instructed students to text VIKING to 313131 to join their SMS list.One recent text filled eight class spots, valued at $79 each--a single text message that cost less than $15 dollars to send resulted in an additional $632 dollars in revenue."Ez Texting allows us to offer our customers a special service and communicate with them on a frequent basis with information they are interested in receiving,” Vicki Willoughby the manager of public relations and marketing has said.

Check out our latest press release over @ PRWeb:

When Saddleback Church wanted to enhance their services, they turned to text messaging. Saddleback Church chose Ez Texting’s group text messaging platform for its low cost, and flexible, powerful API. Saddleback connected their membership database to the Ez Texting text messaging gateway using the API. All communications are synchronized and seamless.

• Check out the entire press release.
• See the Saddleback Case Study.
• Learn About Texting For Your Church Or Ministry.

We just published a brand new mobile marketing case study about how the Viking Cooking Schools are using Ez Texting to communicate with their students and fill empty class slots!

Check out the Viking Cooking School Case Study now!

MediaPost's OnlineMediaDaily reports on some findings that should clear up whether or not its time for your brand to launch its first SMS marketing campaign:

The stereotypes of the teenager whose thumbs are surgically attached to his or her mobile device and the older parent who sees the same as a phone without wires are, like most stereotypes, not entirely inaccurate -- but also not very reliable either.

According to new research by mobile messaging company Tekelec, 60% of those over 45 were found to be just as likely to use SMS as they were to make voice calls from their mobile device. The survey of 500 people in North America and Europe also found that text messaging is gaining on email as the preferred means of daily international communication, with 32% of responses across all ages preferring SMS, compared to 33% for email. And nearly a third of respondents said their use of SMS would increase in 2010.

Learn more about SMS Marketing in our post - What Is SMS Marketing?