The Text Message Marketing Blog

If you were wondering how effective text message marketing can be, the results from a recent Experian study should put those doubts to rest:

Forty-eight percent of consumers ages 18-24 say that a conversation relayed over SMS is just as meaningful as a phone call, according to a new study from Experian Marketing Services.

“Usage has become a primary mode of communications amongst younger consumers, with more than 48 percent of 18-24 year olds indicating that texting is as meaningful as a traditional telephone conversation,” said Bill Tancer, general manager of global research at Experian Marketing Services, Costa Mesa, CA

Read more @ Mobile Marketer!

Text Messaging was ‘born’ 20 years ago, in early December, 1992, when the first message was sent in the UK. To celebrate this monumental, technical/cultural event the BBC tracked down Matti Makkonen, the ‘father’ of SMS. He agreed to an interview – which of course was conducted via text message.

You can read the entire interview at the BBC.

It’s a somewhat apples and oranges here, but the WSJ has some fascinating data on daily mobile active usage on Twitter and Instagram:

In August, U.S. smartphone owners visited Instagram from their smartphones more frequently and for longer periods of time than they visited Twitter.

That data comes from comScore, via a new mobile measurement report: It says that throughout August, Instagram had an average of 7.3 million daily active users — or DAUs, in Facebook parlance. That tops of Twitter’s 6.868 million DAUs over the same period of time.

What’s more, the average Instagram user spent 257 minutes accessing the photo-sharing site via mobile device in August, the data claims, while the average Twitter user over the same period spent 169.9 minutes viewing.

What makes it even more interesting is the fact that Twitter has a lot more mobile users to begin with:

This is the case despite the fact that Twitter had approximately 29 million unique U.S. smartphone-based visitors in August, while Instagram had just under 22 million (comScore measured usage across iOS, Android and BlackBerry OS devices that accessed both sites via native application as well as through the mobile Web browser). This stems from the roughly 110 million smartphone owners that live in the U.S.

As an added bonus don’t miss the final few paragraphs as the WSJ cannot help but turn this interesting data point into yet another dig at Facebook.

Read the entire article @ WSJ

First a quote:

Mobile phones are establishing themselves as an important way for retailers to connect with consumers and entice them into purchases, according to a pair of studies released in May 2012. Data from an Ipsos survey finds that within the US, roughly one-quarter of consumers have opened a retail email on their mobile phone, with that proportion rising to 37% among consumers aged under 35, 32% among business owners, and 31% among those with high educational levels of attainment. Beyond opening emails, mobile owners are also interested in receiving vouchers: according to an eDigitalResearch survey, more than half of smartphone owners would be fairly or very interested in receiving vouchers sent to their devices.

And an interesting chart:

Read more here.

Back in December, Mobile Marketer put together a fantastic list of ‘must have stats for 2011.’ Here are a few of our favorites:

• Mobile advertising will generate $1.23 billion in the United States in 2011
• 8 trillion texts sent, up 1.1 trillion from last year
• $3 billion paid by Apple to independent app developers
• 20 million bar code scans in third quarter 2011

Get the full list at Mobile Marketer.

While we specialize in group texting, we’re always on the lookout for interesting articles about other mobile marketing channels – like QR Codes. QR Codes have gotten a lot of attention and we’re often asked about them. We think they have some great uses, but you need to really consider if they’re the right tool for the job. And if you do use them, make sure to give consumers what they’re looking for Take a peek:

57% of consumers who have scanned a QR code say they did nothing with the information, compared to 21% who shared the information with someone and 18% who made a purchase, according to [download page] a survey released in January 2012 by Chadwick Martin Bailey (CMB). In fact, of those who have scanned a QR code, just 41% said that they found the information they received useful, while 42% had mixed feelings and 18% said the information was not useful.

Overall, only 21% of the survey respondents said they had heard of QR codes, although 81% recalled seeing one when presented with an image.

You can read more at Marketing Charts.

If you handle the marketing for a restaurant and you still haven’t developed a mobile marketing strategy, today’s news from OpenTable should be a wake-up call. TechCrunch Reports:

Restaurant reservations service OpenTable is launching a completely redesigned mobile website today based on HTML5. The company says it was prompted to make the changes due to customer demand. Since 2008, the company has seated more than 15 million diners through both its mobile website and apps, representing over $600 million in revenue for its restaurant customers. These days, OpenTable mobile solutions account for more than 1 million diners seated per month.

Whether or not your restaurant uses OpenTable to handle reservations, one thing is abundantly clear: your customers are looking for you on their mobile phones. If you can’t deliver content to them in a format that they can easily consumer on their mobile phone, whether via the mobile web, a mobile app, or via text message marketing, they’ll abandon you for your competitors.

OpenTable also published an interesting infographic about reservation trends:

Former BusinessInsider writer Dan Frommer has put together a compelling infographic over at his new blog SplatF that explains pretty clearly why those who were expecting an iPhone 5 on Tuesday weren’t thinking so rationally:

He finishes off with a key bit of analysis:

Most people are on 2-year mobile contracts and don’t upgrade every year. Apple is designing with that in mind. And there are a few key things that might go into Apple’s next radical iPhone redesign that aren’t quite ready or mainstream: NFC technology and 4G LTE.

Head over to SplatF to read the entire piece – along with great tech coverage and analysis.

The Huffington Post picked up an interesting research report by JD Power about how the evolving ways we use our mobile phones:

When it comes to communication, our new motto may well be: text me–don’t tell me.

According to new data from J.D. Power, a consumer research and marketing company, Americans are now talking on their cellphones over an hour less per month than in 2009.

Wireless usage patterns continue to evolve, as fewer calls are being made or received. On average, wireless customers use 450 minutes per month, a decline of 77 minutes from 527 in 2009. Customers are using their devices more often for text messaging. The study finds that wireless customers sent/received an average of 39 text messages during an average two-day period. During the course of a month, this equals more than 500 incoming/outgoing text messages.

Read more at The Huffington Post.

We wanted to quickly followup on our post from earlier this summer, Small Businesses Really Like Mobile with the results of a new study:

By the end of 2011, approximately eight in ten small and medium-sized businesses in the United States will pony up and invest in some form of mobile marketing.

As the findings of a new survey conducted by Borrell Associates reveals, 83% of respondents either plan to invest or already have invested a portion of their yearly marketing budget into the mobile channel.

A majority of respondents admit that mobile marketing now captures at least 20% of their total marketing budget for the year.

Read more at Mobile Marketing Watch.