The mobile phone has revolutionised everyday life as well as the way we do business. A less well-known fact is that it also opens up fantastic opportunities for interaction between companies and their SMS marketing customers.
The following statistics clearly demonstrate the fantastic take-up of Text Messaging, or SMS (Short Messaging Service), in the consumer SMS tools market:
-Over 20 billion text messages were sent in the UK in 2003 (Mobile Data Association)
-Over 25 billion text messages were sent in the UK in 2004 (Mobile Data Association)
-Expected growth for 2005 to reach 30 billion text messages (Mobile Data Association)
-56% of direct marketers are planning regular SMS use this year (Forrester)
Over the past few years, text messaging has become by far the most popular mobile data service, and mobile marketing has established itself as an attractive medium in terms of entry cost, response rates and interactivity. We will see it become an increasingly important element in the communications mix in the future.
SMS as a Marketing Tool
For marketers SMS opens up completely new opportunities. Provided recipients have actively opted-in to a service or promotion, an SMS campaign is very well received. The results speak for themselves: recall rates of 60-90% and response rates of 5-20% are often achieved. This is why SMS is becoming incredibly popular to use as one of the many components in an integrated marketing campaign. Still, this medium is very much in its infancy, and the sky is the limit. The following factors will drive the future growth of mobile marketing:
-Further adoption of text messaging among older age segments
-Introduction of further content and services available only on mobile phones (ring tones, alerts, logos, pictures etc)
-Introduction of new standards and formats that offer a richer user experience and further interactivity (MMS with colour and sound, polyphonic ring tones etc)
The bottom line is, mobile phones are becoming an integral part of the social fabric. As such we strongly believe in the power of mobile marketing!