Resurgence in mobile messaging is proof it simply works

While smartphone use is growing, SMS is the only medium that can get your brand to every mobile consumer.

Last week I felt like I’d stepped through a magic door and gone back in time. I was chairing an event hosted by the Internet Advertising Bureau and the Direct Marketing Association about SMS marketing. And I’d spent the evening before with O2 Media MD Shaun Gregory, in large part discussing the effectiveness of SMS as a marketing channel.

Text messaging was the original mobile marketing channel. It has been helping brands reach consumers for longer than a decade. But recently there has been a swell of renewed interest in the channel. This is nothing but good news. SMS was kicked out of the limelight by the explosion of mobile apps, in particular on the iPhone. Apps’ technicolour success threw the dowdy SMS into the shade.
But it’s all too easy for brands to get caught up chasing the latest digital innovation and forget to focus on channels that have been proven to deliver. This is compounded in mobile where platform schisms are prone to occur, as Reuters global head of mobile Ilicco Elia discusses in this week’s Profile.

Mobile messaging can undoubtedly deliver. While smartphone use is growing, SMS is the only medium that can get your brand to every mobile consumer. Research from the IAB and DMA offers compelling evidence of SMS’s effectiveness for brands. Although marketers are often wary of using SMS for fear of being seen as intrusive, the research found consumers welcomed brand contact. In fact, commercial messages from a user’s operator were almost as welcome as those from friends and family. Also clear is the role mobile messaging can play in influencing consumers’ use of complementary media. Marks & Spencer found MMS messages increased visits to its mobile site by 81%.

So the renewed interest in mobile messaging by marketers is heartening. The IAB/DMA event was packed and operators are reporting huge success with their SMS marketing arms like O2 Media and Orange Shots. Messaging should be a core component of any brand’s marketing strategy and will continue to provide effective, measurable results.

By Justin Pearse, New Media Age