Jo Wall of Acision has an excellent opinion piece about SMS Marketing over at Mobile Marketer today. Her thesis is summarized nicely by the lede - 'It is about using the medium intelligently and not bombarding consumers with so much untargeted SMS advertising that they become desensitized.'
Let's go a little deeper:
SMS advertising can take the form of simple push campaigns where the campaign message is the sole content of the text, to delivering an ad insert where the advertisement is included in an existing SMS message such as a carrier notification – missed call alert, welcome message or a VAS content message including weather or sports alerts.
SMS can also drive calls to action, click rates and consumers to respond to surveys as well as jump or visit mobile Web sites.
Not only can SMS be used as the bearer of – or bridge to – the marketing message, but also as an ideal channel to solicit feedback from end users by way of a conversation or dialogue.
It is this two-way dialogue which makes it possible for companies to gather important targeting information such as demographics and preferences as well as interests from willing consumers.
She also touches on the popularity of SMS campaigns, something we covered here a few weeks ago:
SMS is one of the oldest wireless technologies still in use, and for good reason: It is nearly ubiquitous in terms of device and network support, enjoys wide consumer awareness across all demographics and is relatively inexpensive for consumers, brands and marketers.
All of those benefits make SMS a highly effective way for a mobile marketing campaign to reach the mass market – far more than, say, smartphone applications, which have a rapidly growing yet still small addressable market.
That is why in 2010, SMS increasingly will serve as the glue that cements multichannel campaigns.
She cites a Forrester report, but the findings are essentially the same. Finally, she ends with a word of caution - don't abuse the medium - citing a nightmarish sounding 2006 situation in Pakistan.
You can read all about that episode, along with the rest of the piece at Mobile Marketer.
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