Using SMS marketing successfully.

Mobile phone marketing, otherwise known as SMS marketing, is the newest evolution of direct advertising. Direct advertising has always been favored by businesses as a specialized and focused method of reaching new consumers and, with the popularity of mobiles, mobile marketing has risen in favor. SMS marketing is perhaps best defined as the practice of promoting products and services using digital distribution channels to reach consumers in a quick, relevant, personalized and cost-effective manner.

The most common form of mobile marketing is SMS marketing, which has expanded very quickly in Europe and Asia. It is thought that several hundred million promotional messages are sent through SMS every month in Europe alone. SMS stands for ’short message service’ and is a communication form unique to mobiles where a short message can be easily sent to any cell user. As well as sending material to consumers, advertisers can often encourage consumers to participate in promotional and brand exposure promotions by encouraging consumers to SMS a particular number at an event in order to enter a competition, to receive a gift or to have their text displayed on a multimedia wall at an event. All of these methods engages the customer through the medium of SMS and creates brand exposure.

There are many other examples of mobile marketing. One example is sending texts via MMS, which is a multimedia version of SMS, allowing consumers to receive texts with color, pictures and video. There is also mobile web marketing, where brands advertise marketing aims through websites accessed by mobiles. Publicists often make innovative use of mobile marketing such as location-based services where consumers are offered tailored marketing and other network-related information and promotional material based on their location. With the variety of methods and choices available to promoters, it is unsurprising that a recent marketing survey found that 89% of major brands planned to advertise their products through mobile marketing by the end of 2008.

SMS marketing is an example of what is known within the industry as “push” marketing. The idea behind push marketing is that that the marketer has to send (push) the information to the consumer in order for the material to be received. This is different to “pull” marketing, a more unobtrusive form of advertising, where it is users who seek out the material from sources such as websites or blogs.

There are many positives to mobile marketing. Primarily, the attraction is that this mode of advertising can be tailored to the user. This is the gold standard in marketing as it means getting the message specifically to the audience it’s focused on, instead of wasting money on an unfocussed campaign. The specialization allowed by this mode of promotions, which results in a more economical campaign, is one reason why a high return on investment is possible with mobile marketing. Another advantage of mobile marketing is the detailed tracking and reporting of subscribers it allows. Through this form, companies can track how many users viewed their material and also access specific data about each subscriber such as their name, their age, their demographic and where they’re located. This allows a promoter to raise profiles of their customers; data which then guides future promotional campaigns and, ideally, their success.

It is noted in the industry that push marketing, of which mobile marketing is a type, can help build new cash flows and brand reinforcement if it is implemented correctly and appropriately. This is because it makes consumers aware of new additions that they may not know to enquire about already and the way the material is written, and even the fact that the material is being sent by a contemporary, cool medium such as SMS, can say a great deal about a brand and a company.

There are, however, some negatives to mobile marketing. Inherently, it must have a mechanism - the cell - in order to send content. The marketer, as well, has to make use of specialized technology and software in order to send the information to customers, which can mean considerable costs. Another negative is the fact that mobile marketing is heavily regulated by the telecommunications industry in response to customer concerns about what data and promotions they get shown. Most Western nations have laws in place that request businesses to get the approval of customers before promotional information is sent to them and must clearly provide them with an ‘opt out’ choice if they wish to stop receiving content. If marketers are found to be in breach of these laws, network providers can block marketing material by businesses.

As mobile technology improves, mobile marketing will surely continue to increase in relevance.