Article  SMS Marketing: A Mobile Commerce Opportunity The universality of mobile communication devices has opened up an invaluable new customer pathway for enterprising businesses. By reaching out to consumers through SMS marketing, companies can interact with their target audience in a fast and cost efficient way. SMS and other associated interactive mobile applications enable the type of immediate back and forth communication en masse that businesses have always dreamed of. This article examines some of the advantages of text message marketing and discusses some ways in which it can help any company communicate with its customer base. SMS stands for short messaging service, a data application that includes basic text messaging. SMS has taken the social communication world by storm with over two billion users around the globe. MMS is an important development of the SMS concept that allows for the transmission of multimedia objects, including pictures, video, and audio as well as basic text and rich text. These services are great for keeping in touch with friends and relatives, but how can businesses utilize them to interact with customers? Obviously, a company cannot just spam everyone's inbox with advertisements. Instead, a little creativity is required. SMS marketing can involve mobile promotional campaigns, competitions, text voting, games, and trivia contests. More great ideas are sprouting up all of the time. After all, SMS has really only been huge for the past five or six years. It has taken time to mobilize companies, especially smaller ones, into this marketing stream but now business is booming. An SMS newsletter is one way that businesses have taken advantage of texting. Users that sign up for a newsletter will receive periodic text messages about the newest offers and sales that the company is offering. This is a savvy system because customers do not have to think of the company on their own. The business can even tailor the newsletter to different customers. Through SMS, the company provides the customer with pertinent information and simultaneously makes itself available for any questions or concerns via a quick text reply. This ability to reach customers any time and any place is invaluable. Radio shows and television programs have started to interact with audiences through text-based voting and contests. ESPN has an entire program based on polling the nation on relevant sports topics. Texting promotional codes is another example of text message marketing. With technological advancements like MMS and short code, there are a great number of marketing options available. In general, the most effective marketing initiatives are simple and targeted. A series of complicated back and forth messages only serves to distance the consumer from the company. Communication with completely disinterested people can be a waste so properly targeting the right audience is important as well. Intrigued businesses can seek specialized companies that facilitate SMS marketing. Designing the perfect marketing campaign in an unfamiliar medium can be challenging, so it is important to find expert advice before launching a program. A reliable network is a necessity, and it should have strong connections with the major carrier networks in order to reach as many customers as possible. Modern business is mobile business and the market's top institutions are hopping onboard the SMS train and riding the texting boom. Innovative and mobile marketing strategies are allowing businesses to reach consumers on the move and during key times in the purchasing process. The ubiquity of mobile devices enables dynamic commerce opportunities and provides an excellent pathway for customer interaction. The recent field of SMS marketing will keep advancing into the next decade and beyond. Grab on now to make sure the future doesn't pass on by. Category Marketing Author Anonymous Add To Favorites Print This Article Email Article To A Friend Post Comments   Rate This Article (0) 1 - Poor2345 - Good678910 - Excellent Added On 02-16-2010