2017 Business Trend in the SMS Marketing and Communication World

With person to person SMS continuing to decline due to the proliferation of messaging applications such as WhatsApp, 2017 will see a further increase in the use of SMS for mobile advertising. According to Portio Research some 1.7 trillion Application to Person (A2P) SMS will be sent globally by 2018. One of the main reasons is that SMS is the only application available on every mobile handset.

According to the research here are some trends for mobile advertising and the use of SMS in 2017.

2 Factor SMS Authentication

We are seeing a growing number of companies using SMS as a security layer for its services. SMS will be increasing used to share notifications, login confirmations, password resets and updates on status or content shares with users.

Internet of Things

With more devices connected to the internet now and the so called ‘Internet of Things’ expanding, many more connected devices will use SMS for real time alerts and information to device owners.

Mobile DMP or Mobile CRM (Customer Relationship Management Software)

A mobile DMP (Data Management Platform) is a centralized platform that ingests, organizes, and segments a marketer’s first- and third-party mobile and desktop audience data assets in one place for audience creation, analytics, and execution. Brands use mobile DMPs to:

• Build sophisticated audience segments across first- and third-party data for precision at scale.
• Create, optimize, and activate cross-platform mobile and web campaigns for consistent messaging across all consumer touch points.
• Leverage deep mobile integrations to send audience data to top execution platforms and power targeted mobile in-app, web, and video advertising.
• Connect audience interactions across mobile and desktop touch points to provide the most cohesive customer experience anywhere, and track response and actions across various screens and channels.
• Generate robust audience analytics to get deep actionable insights into your mobile audience composition and in-market behaviours. 

Email marketing has been used for years to keep in contact and maintain relationships with customers. Lately, with the increasing use of mobile phones over desktop computers, we’ve seen marketers rapidly adapting to mobile consumer habits by transitioning their Email marketing programs, like Constant Contact and Mailchimps to a mobile DMP, specifically with SMS capabilities in order to reach and engage their audiences more directly through text messaging than Emails. 

• Open rates on desktop computers have dropped over 18% in the past couple of years. 
• 89% of consumers will delete a poorly formatted email if viewed on mobile. 27% will unsubscribe.
• According to a report commissioned by SinglePoint, it was found that text message open rates exceed 99%, and even more shocking is that 90% of all text messages are read within 3 minutes of being received on the mobile phone.
• When you compare the open rates of text messages to email marketing open rates for a business such as a restaurant (23% open rates), you’re looking at over 3X the amount of your customers opening your text messages over your emails.

Sectors which will increase use of SMS in 2017

The main sectors which will increasingly use SMS as their mobile advertising platform will be retail, government and travel sectors. As business and organizations move towards paperless offices, SMS will be used to deliver promo codes, marketing messages, billing cycles, payment alerts and transaction alerts.

The number of businesses globally who use SMS for their mobile advertising is growing as it provides a low cost, reliable and secure way to contact customers. Remember that 98% of SMS messages are read. 


No longer does one need to question the need for dedicated mobile marketing budgets or justify the spend on the medium. Existentially speaking, mobile is here to stay.

For more information on mobile marketing and trends, please feel free to contact us.

Is Short Code SMS Marketing Suitable for Forprofit as well as Nonprofit Organizations?

Almost all mobile phones supports text messaging – 97% of them and all smartphones do. To this end SMS has the widest reach of any mobile medium, making it an ideal marketing and communications tool for businesses and perfect for nonprofit organizations too.

Perfect for fundraising considering that text messaging has taken off across the world and continues to gain popularity. In terms of mobile fundraising  SMS is also an approved carrier-billing method.

Texting is not just a teen activity… That’s a myth these days with all ages sending and receiving text messages.  Today may brands, nonprofits, associations and businesses realize this and are using text messaging to interact and engage with their customers, employees, members and volunteers.

SMS Short Codes and generally a 5 or 6 digit number or numeric string of letters that spell a name or give a call to action which people text into like “Mobile” with a key word like “donate.”

Increasingly people are becoming familiar with popular brands using SMS short codes in their marketing campaigns. Usage by non profits and government entities are on the increase too,  realizing using short codes enable them to reach more and more people.

Mobile campaigns text messaging can include links to the non profit’s mobile Internet website or mobile WAP page very easily these days. Paving the way for continued engagement via text messaging.

Websites and telephone numbers can be accessed via links in the text message reply. These are most effective when stating an immediate “click to call” instruction and the response can be dealt with via charity’s call center. A "show to redeem" incentive is also widely used for businesses offering discounts and promotions.

More than 97 percent of ALL mobile phones support text messaging, consumers don’t need smartphones or expensive data plans to engage with their favorite charities.

Industry statistics say that on average, texts are read in under five minutes of delivery whereas the average email is read within 48 hours. SMS users are active across all demographics. In the USA 53% of those engaging with short code are over 35 years old.  82% of 18–24 year olds and 72% ages 25–49 year olds send and receive text messages.

There are more than twice as many active SMS users as active users of email and the gap is widening in favor of SMS users year on year.

It’s estimated that  over 65 % of email is spam, less than 10 percent of SMS is spam.

Mobile phones overtake landline services for many people across the world. This mean for permission based mobile communication are becoming ever more critical nonprofit organizations.

In conclusion SMS marketing could mobilize millions of people and dollars if done right! For more information or assistance in your mobile marketing and communication strategies, please contact a representative at MODI$club.

Reference Source: iLocalSearch

Five Social Media Projections for 2011

According to projections done by Forrester Research reported by MarketingProfs, as social media marketing matures in 2011, a host of new challenges will likely confront marketers, including increasingly cluttered social platforms and growing privacy concerns. Thus, even more than content, personality, or responsiveness, social media's new currency in 2011 is likely to be trust.

Consumers' privacy fears are increasing: 36% of surveyed adults—and 50% of Older Boomers age 54-65—say they are very concerned about their privacy on social networks, up from roughly 30% a year earlier. Such growing mistrust will make it harder for marketers to gather friends and followers, or to engage users in social programs in the coming year, according to Forrester:

1. Marketers will therefore have to work harder to earn confidence and involvement from consumers in 2011.
2. More social media clutter will make it harder for marketers to connect with their target audiences. Clutter is even a greater challenge among younger audiences: 80% of Gen-Y adults are Joiners and have an average of 220 Facebook friends. Activities on social channels will continue to grow, not just with messages from friends but via a growing stream of check-ins, deals, sweepstakes, and loyalty program updates from marketers.
   
3. More marketers will jostle for attention. Nearly 60% of marketers are already using paid or created social media, and another 25% plan to do so within the next 12 months, leaving just one in six companies absent from social channels one year from now.
   
   More than two in five (43%) marketers surveyed say their interactive budgets will increase in 2011. Mobile and social budgets will increase the most: 48% will increase social budgets and 53% will increase mobile budgets.
   
4. Facebook won't own social media. Facebook is just one piece of the social pie. Although 59% of US adults are Joiners, only 45% of men age 45-54 have Joiner behaviors. So the most successful marketing programs won't simply be contained within Facebook; successful marketers instead will "think outside the Facebox." Marketers will continue to use traditional forms of communication and promotion with more and more creative products generated by companies like Sharper. Also, marketers will keep exploring the hottest strategies now in mobile marketing.
   
5. Paid social media may become an important tool for marketers. With 16% of marketers surveyed saying they have no plans to use either paid or created social media in the next year, will paid social media become a legitimate tool for marketers to overcome social media clutter or will there be an even more emcompassing media that reaches audiences more directly and readily? The answer could be in mobile. Mobile marketing is slated to be marketers' next best friend in years to come and marketers are now already combining the technology with traditional and social medias to create winning campaigns, measure ROI and reach audiences in new and exciting ways.

About the study: Combine mobile with your social media presence or other traditional strategies, contact us today for more information.

Source: MarketersProf

Untapped Potential for Mobile Loyalty Programs

Interest is high, but few brands take loyalty to mobile devices

As smartphones and the mobile internet increase penetration among Americans and Canadians, shoppers are relying more on their phones while out and about to get product, store and price information to help them make decisions. Loyalty programs can also be tied to mobile, giving customers an easy way to access points and coupons—and retailers an easy way to capture customer data.

When surveyed in October 2010, more than a third of US mobile phone owners said they would be interested in a mobile loyalty program from a trusted brand. But just 9% were already participating in such a program. Majority of respondents said their favorite brands did not market to them at all on their mobile phone, suggesting companies may be leaving valuable opportunities on the table. Shoppers already involved in mobile loyalty programs were highly satisfied: 90% said they had gotten value from being a member.

Overall, interest in mobile loyalty programs was about the same found in 2009, but respondents’ desire for mobile coupons had gone up over the same period. Nearly two in five US mobile phone owners were at least somewhat interested in receiving mobile coupons, up from 18% the year before. And nearly half were at least somewhat likely to redeem them, a rise of 3 percentage points.

A September 2010 survey of US shoppers by the In-Store Marketing Institute found a similar level of interest, with 34% of respondents interested in mobile coupons—likely somewhat lower because the survey included consumers who were not mobile users. That poll also found a third of shoppers were interested in mobile coupons that could be sent to their loyalty card, and half wanted coupons that could be sent to their loyalty card in general.

For more information on how your brand can instantly go mobile offering mobile coupons, sales alerts, event reminders and more, visit MODI$club.

Source: eMarketer

Case History of Mobile Marketing

Obama for President 2008: “Celling of the President”

After three election cycles in which the Internet was expected to play a significant role in the campaign process but ultimately was a marginal factor, 2008 was the breakthrough year. In particular, the role of mobile communications in the Barack Obama campaign has prompted some to describe it as the “Celling of the President.”

The Pew Internet Project found that a record-breaking 46% of Americans used the Internet, cell phone text messaging or e-mail to obtain information about the campaign. In some categories Internet usage was triple the levels of the 2004 campaigns. For example, about 6% of Americans made political contributions online, compared to 2% who did so in 2004.

Mobile communications played a major role in the efforts, particularly in the tech- heavy activities of the Obama campaign. Text messaging was a fundamental component of the plan, used on an opt-in basis. This established relationships with supporters, especially young voters. For example, the Obama campaign blasted text messages at key moments of their campaign, notably the announcement of Joe Biden as the vice presidential running mate. An estimated 2.9 million people received that text message early on the Saturday morning (August 23, 2008) just before the Democratic National Convention began. The Obama campaign has not officially released the number of supporters who signed up to receive mobile text messages and other online communications.

For the mobile campaign, the Obama team set up a dedicated mobile Web site: http://obamamobile.mobi. Supporters who logged in to the campaign’s primary Web site, with an M (for mobile) prefix—http://m.barackobama.com—were automatically redirected to the .mobi site. The mobile site invited visitors to “Get involved: Sign up for mobile alerts”—basically to register to the short code 62262 (the keypad numbers corresponding to the letters O, B, A, M, A). This opt-in procedure enabled the campaign to identify its contacts.

From the Obama mobile server, supporters could download ringtones, wallpapers and campaign videos. Users could also get candidate information—such as campaign stops and schedules, as well as news reports and social networking opportunities (e.g. the link to “ask a friend to join”). Most significantly, the mobile site—like other Obama online components—permitted individuals to make financial contributions. The mobile site also enabled supporters to request white papers and other documents, which were automatically sent via e-mail to their desktop or portable devices.

In addition to the text alert for the Biden selection, the Obama campaign dispatched messages before local appearances, prior to the debates, as well as on the eve of primary and general Election Days. There was also a “thank you” message after the November 4 victory.

Supporters who signed up for the service paid an average of 10 cents per message, although that figure varies widely. It is assumed that many in the young, tech-savvy Obama cadre subscribe to their wireless carriers’ “bulk text messaging” packages. Casual and occasional users pay about 20 cents per message.

Each text message blast generated a cost for both sides (the Obama transmission and the individual reception), whether it was a per-use fee or a click on the bulk bundled subscription fee). One analysis of the Biden message blast concluded that the total expense for that event could have ranged from about $1.2 million to $1.8 million, depending on the fees for each individual message (in the range of 3 cents to 10 cents per message). If there were 5 million participants, the range rises to $1.95 million to $3 million.

One objective of a political campaign is to build a contact list of supporters, contributors, volunteer workers and other citizens. The Obama campaign gathered e-mail addresses, phone numbers and other data about supporters, securing relationships that can be used in future political efforts by Obama and other political allies.

Strategically, the use of SMS—and online messages as well—represented an integrated marketing plan. Among its attributes: it bypassed traditional media as a way to communicate with and energize a large and widely dispersed audience. The interactive features enabled financial contributions and viral social media connections, which the Obama campaign exploited.

The Obama campaign’s activities have been widely hailed as a prototype for the digital era. Advertising Age declared Obama as the “Marketer of the Year,” citing the digital campaign and especially its mobile marketing component. In the polling of marketing industry executives, the Obama campaign (36.1%) scored ahead of familiar brands such as Apple (27.3%), Nike (9.4%), online shoe seller Zappos (14.1%) and Coors Brewery (8.7%). The John McCain campaign (4.5%) was far behind.

The McCain campaign also used mobile marketing, but far less aggressively. It was difficult to find the SMS sign-up information on the primary McCain campaign Web site, www.JohnMcCain.com. There appeared to be few efforts to dispatch text messages consistently during the campaign. One significant promotion for the McCain SMS capability came during the Republican Party’s convention: an SMS appeal to donate funds to the American Red Cross for victims of the hurricanes that were hitting the southern U.S. during that period. (The Obama campaign also urged $5 text donations to the Red Cross during that period.)

To read more about how to setup your own SMS campaign, visit MODI$club.

Source: Simba Information

Five Fatal Communication Errors–and How to Avoid Them

Below are the five most common errors that businesses commit in using mobile platforms for their marketing communications, along with ways to solve the problems that result (or to avoid those problems altogether).

Error 1: Failing to consider the audience first
Jumping on the latest, greatest communication bandwagon without first asking, "Who is my audience and is [insert new media platform here] the best way to reach them?" is the leading cause of ineffective marketing communications. That certain media lacks an entry barrier (i.e., it's easy and cheap) magnifies the problem; even marketers who should know better are led astray.

Without understanding your audience's needs, expectations, and preferences, you can make only guesses about how best to reach them.

Solutions: Sometimes, profiling your target audience based on knowledge that exists inside your company can be enough to determine whether a particular communication path is worth pursuing. Audiences can also be interviewed, surveyed, or polled to determine their communication preferences. But the most effective strategy will be a combination of solutions, including those provided below.

Error 2: Assigning ownership of messages
Companies will often make individuals owners of important key messages. Thus, numerous people throughout the company are given incentive to do whatever they can to "get their message out," and they will tend to measure their results in terms of volume. The result is a great deal of noise for those on the receiving end of these dispersed communications, because no one has an incentive to make the needs and preferences of the target audience a primary concern.

Solution: Assign ownership of audiences, not messages. For example, "business partners" may be one target audience with whom your business needs to communicate. "Attendees of event X" may be another. Assign an individual or department to own each audience for your company; it's then the owner's job to represent the needs of the audience and to ensure that the messages delivered to the audience match what the audience really needs. This approach also helps to reduce noise because one entity has complete visibility into the messages that audience is receiving.

Error 3: Offering too much or too little choice
Offering audiences too much choice for communicating with them creates noise. For example, if they receive the same information via Twitter, LinkedIn, emails, online groups, and your newsletter, at some point they will tune out and potentially miss important new information.

Offering too little choice is just as problematic. For example, many organizers now use Facebook to advertise events and contests to the exclusion of traditional websites and advertising. However, the assumption that "everybody" is on Facebook—or that everyone who is on Facebook and needs the information will receive it—is flawed.

Solutions: Choose the best mix of communication vehicles for your audience and purpose. Enable audiences to filter your information and messages by topic. Enable opt-in communication and allow audiences to choose their preferred format to receive information (e.g., daily, weekly, monthly email; SMS; social media group or fan page). Above all, provide a single place that audiences can go to get all available information on one topic and use certain media (eg. SMS) to highlight or direct them to the information.

Error 4: Failing to consolidate messages and information
A key problem with relying on quick-and-dirty methods to disseminate information (e.g., Tweets, Facebook, and LinkedIn updates) is that no one ever gets the complete picture at once—if ever at all.

You also lose control of the message through "re-tweeting" and status sharing, so it's important to have a method in place that allows you to own the whole picture even while the message is being disseminated by others.

Solutions: Assigning ownership of audiences (No. 2 above) can eliminate this problem. Here's another strategy:

First consider how many messages the audience really needs about the topic, and how often they need to receive updates.
Next, follow the advice in No. 3 above.
Then, for each topic or event, provide a single place where audiences can go to get all the information they need. These days, this is most likely to be a Web page—but it may also be a toll-free number or a physical location like an information kiosk.
Finally, in every message you send out on the topic, tell people where they can go to get complete information.

Error 5: Falling prey to "easy" and "cheap"
The primary problem with easy and cheap is that it's easy and cheap. With no premium or barrier to entry, user-driven communication vehicles like Twitter and Facebook arrive on the market already commoditized. By becoming distracted by easy-access commodities, companies erode the value of tried-and true foundations of communication.

Examples of how this can happen include:
Creating too much noise for truly important messages to be effectively heard.
Inadvertently training your audiences to ignore messages from you because there are too many messages of low value.
Succumbing to 11th-hour communication (because it's so easy to do) rather than planning out well-timed information delivery.

Solution: Consider new communication channels (eg. SMS mobile) within the context of the bigger picture: your business and marketing goals, your audience's needs and preferences, your marketing communications mix. The marcoms mix should always be open for tweaking, but make changes only after you have a solid business case for it. Once the need for change is determined, take the time to map out your audiences, the messages they need, and the best channels of delivery for each audience-message combination.

An Aside: My Favorites
Two marketing communication vehicles are my tried-and-true favorites. Here's how I like to fit them into an overall marcoms mix:

SMS alerts/updates. Ideal for consolidating information into one location. Summarize important information and provide links to Web pages where complete information can be found. Stick to a reliable distribution schedule that people can come to expect and appreciate as part of their daily or weekly routine.

Dedicated Web pages. Ideal for collecting all the information and answers to frequently asked questions about single topic. Easy to link to when communicating updates on the topic and easy for others to link to when forwarding or recommending the topic to friends. It may be a traditional HTML page, a blog entry, or a LinkedIn or Facebook Group page. Just remember that not everyone can access applications like LinkedIn. Your audience should never feel forced to sign up for third-party applications to get the information they want from you.

Partial Source: MarketingProfs

Wanted: Not More Communication, but More Effective Communication

August, 2010

Your target audiences almost certainly don't want more communication. What they surely do want is more effective communication, which is to say communication that delivers the information they want or need, at the time they need it and in the formats they prefer.

To create an effective marketing communications program, you need to decide which media platforms will work best with other ingredients in the marketing mix to help you reach your marketing communications objectives.

Choosing platforms and ingredients strategically, with an eye to how they will complement one another, will create much better results than using them simply because they have become available. Pursuing the latter course—communicating via any and all platforms just because they're there—merely creates noise.

For more information or help on the best media platform for your campaigns, visit our marketing, design and technology company, nexusV or our mobile marketing platform, MODI$club.

Targeting Parents with Mobile Alerts

AUGUST 19, 2010

Busy parents of young children seek to simplify with SMS.

Marketers looking to convince mobile subscribers to opt in to SMS marketing campaigns should look to target parents, especially those with young children, based on research conducted by Harris Interactive for mobile marketing platform Placecast.

The May 2010 survey found that among US mobile users with children, 33% were at least somewhat interested in receiving mobile alerts from their favorite merchants. Among those without children, just 26% were equally interested. The age of children in the household also had an effect on user interest levels; the presence of children under 6 boosted interest levels most, while those with teenagers in the house acted somewhat more like couples with no kids.

Parents considered several mobile activities at least somewhat important at higher rates than mobile users without children, including searching for retail locations (57% vs. 42%), making purchases (40% vs. 26%) and accessing the internet in general (63% vs. 48%).

Most of parents’ desire for mobile text alerts points to time-strapped families looking to save money. Grocery coupons and promotions were the most popular text alert among all parents, including among the subgroups with older children and teens. The biggest interest of parents of the youngest kids was in products like movie tickets. The only promotions that appealed more to the child-free were deals for coffee and travel.

The typical early adopter of consumer electronics may be male, but its families who have the most potential to drive mobile marketing efforts based on opt-in text alerts.

Keep your business ahead of the digital curve. Learn more about becoming a MODI$club client today.

Article Source: eMarketer

Why Many Teens Are Moving on from Facebook and What they are saying about mobile phones and texting

JULY 12, 2010

The main reason? They just lost interest

There’s no question of Facebook’s position at the top of the social networking space, and one thing that makes the site so powerful is that when it comes to social networking, a user’s friends must be users too. But among some teens, Facebook may be losing its stickiness.

According to a study from OTX and virtual fashion site Roiworld, nearly one in five teens with a Facebook profile had decreased or discontinued their use of the site as of April 2010.

What’s more, the decreases seemed to speed up in recent months, with two-thirds of the lapsed users having turned away from the site in the past six months.

In addition, 9% of teen internet users said they had a Facebook profile but had completely abandoned it.

This turnover does not approach the level of MySpace, where 22% of teens had completely stopped using a profile. YouTube and Twitter both sported relatively high 15% abandonment rates.

In Facebook’s case, decreased usage does not appear to be related to the privacy issues raised in spring 2010, or even to the influx of older users on the site. Instead, the plurality of lapsed users simply find the site boring.

Reasons for using Facebook less, Apr 2010 (% of US teen lapese Facebook users)

• Lose interest/it's boring 45%
• More interested in visiting other websites instead 28%
• Too many notifications 27%
• Most/all of my friends do not use Facebook 21%
  
• Got tired of typing to keep up with all the activities 21%
  
• Too many ads 20%
  
• Had trouble finding people I know 18%
• Most of my friends are using other social networking sites 16%
• Other social network sites are better now 16%
• Facebook does not offer the features I want 16%
• Because my parents joined 16%
• Facebook has lost its novelty 14%
• Too many adults/older people 14%
• Uncomfortable people seeing my personal stuff 13%
• Do not like the change Facebook has implemented 12%
• Did not like the people I met on Facebook 11%
• Other 5%

Source Roiworld and OTX "Teens & social networks study" June 30, 2010

Keeping fickle teens’ interest will be important both for Facebook and the marketers who want to connect with them where they are - their mobile phones.

Nearly half (47%) of US teens say their social life would end or be worsened without their cell phone, and nearly six in 10 (57%) credit their mobile device with improving their life, according to a national survey from CTIA and Harris Interactive.

Four out of five teens (17 million) carry a wireless device (a 40% increase since 2004), finds the study titled “Teenagers: A Generation Unplugged,” which probes how the growing teen wireless segment is using wireless products and how they want to use them in the future.

Impact on Teen Life

• A majority (57%) of teens view their cell phone as the key to their social life.
• Second only to clothing, teens say, a person’s cell phone tells the most about their social status or popularity, outranking jewelry, watches and shoes.

Providing Entertainment and Security

• More than half of the respondents (52%) agree that the cell phone has become a new form of entertainment.
• One-third of teens play games on their phone.
• 80% say their cell phone provides a sense of security while on the go, confirming that the cell phone has become their mobile safety net when needing a ride (79%), getting important information (51%), or just helping out someone in trouble (35%).
• Teens carry cell phones to have access to friends, family and current events.
• Though only one in five (18%) teens care to pinpoint the location of their family and friends via their cell phone, 36% hate the idea of a cell phone feature that allows others to know their exact location.

Texting Replacing Talking

The study also confirmed that texting is replacing talking among teens. Teens admitted spending nearly an equal amount of time talking as they do texting each month. The feature is so important to them that if texting were no longer an option 47% of teens say their social life would end or be worsened - that’s especially so among females (54% vs. 40%).

Teens say texting has advantages over talking because it offers more options, including multitasking, speed, the option to avoid verbal communication, and because it is fun - in that order, according to the study.

With more than 1 billion text messages sent each day, it is no surprise that 42% of teens say they can text blindfolded, the study found.

“Teens have created a new form of communication. We call it texting, but in essence it is a reflection of how teens want to communicate to match their lifestyles. It is all about multitasking, speed, privacy and control,” said Joseph Porus, VP & chief architect, Technology Group, Harris Interactive. “Teens in this study are crying for personalization and control of exactly what a wireless device or plan can do for them.”

Devices of the Future

The survey asked teens what future changes they’d like to see in wireless services and devices and found that respondents want cell phones that break boundaries and are personalized to fit their lifestyles.

Teens remain excited and open minded about the wireless possibilities and their ideal future mobile devices would feature five applications - phone, MP3 player, GPS, laptop computer and video player, according to Harris.

Mobile Users Ready for Location-Based Text Marketing

JULY 6, 2010

Mobile marketing is not just for smartphones

Though smartphone shipments are rising and expected to surpass shipments of feature phones in 2011, according to Morgan Stanley, feature phones are still the devices in the hands of most mobile users. An April 2010 ExactTarget study found 58% of all US internet users ages 15 and older had one, compared with 31% who had a smartphone.

That means a large swathe of mobile users cannot be reached by more sophisticated mobile marketing efforts like sponsored apps, in-app ads or campaigns on the mobile web. According to location-based advertising network 1020 Placecast, opt-in text alerts are the smart way to target a fuller mobile audience.

A May 2010 survey conducted for Placecast by Harris Interactive found that while most mobile users still have not signed up for any text alerts, there was a small rise in interest since a similar poll in 2009: 28% were at least somewhat interested in the alerts, up 2 percentage points, and 8% were extremely or very interested, up 3 percentage points. For under-35s, interest was significantly higher.

Those who wanted the alerts were most interested in coupons and promotions from grocery stores and restaurants. Respondents who had signed up for text alerts said it made them more likely to visit the company’s website (34%), visit the store (33%) and purchase the product being promoted, either in online (28%) or in the store (27%).

Many agreed that making those text alerts location-based, so that recipients would get the right offer at the right time, could make the channel more useful or interesting.

While awareness of location-based text alerts is still building, there is the potential to reach a broader audience than with check-in apps such as foursquare or Gowalla, which are designed with smartphone owners in mind. And despite negative attitudes of many mobile users toward SMS marketing, Placecast reports low opt-out rates among recipients.

SMS alerts in marketing is viewed by the brand faithful as a service, not just marketing or an intrusion, according to Placecast. To learn more about SMS marketing, please contact MODI$club.

Source: eMarketer