When you work in the mobile telecoms business, you get pretty used to the occasional news story announcing the decline of SMS as a telecoms tool, especially in the teens/twenties demographic.

We’ve been reading predictions like this for half a dozen years now, but text messaging just keeps growing in popularity – in our view because it’s simple, easy, elegant and cheap.

Now SMS has had yet another boost in the form of Facebook announcing its new Facebook Messages service. The new service will collate updates and messages from email, web, mobile app and SMS sources into a streamlined, simplified messaging and information system designed for younger demographics who find email too formal or unwieldy. And if Facebook’s past experience is anything to go by, technology aimed at the kids will soon be taken up by their parents (and grandparents!) too.

Facebook’s stated aim is to make online communication “more like a conversation” – something that flows in a pretty natural way between friends and groups of friends. SMS – which is about as neat, spontaneous and fast as telecommunications can get – is a natural fit for this kind of philosophy.

The new Messages service will be built around a so-called “social inbox” that collates communications and stores them in threads in a way that’s a little reminiscent of Google Wave. It’s pretty certain, however, that because of its enormous userbase (500m+), Facebook’s attempt at this kind of unifying telecoms technology is going to be much bigger than Wave.

Facebook sees the new technology as a way of allowing users greater control over their personal communications. In his blog post announcing the rollout of Messages, Facebook software engineer Joel Seligstein said, “this kind of message control is pretty unprecedented and people have been wanting to do this with email (and phone calls) for a long time. Messages reverses the approach to preventing unwanted contact. Instead of having to worry about your email address getting out, you’re now in control of who can actually reach you.”

How does TextMagic fit into this? Well, whichever way you look at it, network providers are going to charge for SMS messages. If the Facebook Messages model goes ahead as planned (and it’s still being rolled out, so nobody’s entirely sure), TextMagic will allow users to interact with Facebook Messages quicky and easily – from their desktop, mobile device or email application – at a lower cost than they would have to pay if sending SMS via their regular mobile provider.

We’re very excited about Facebook Messages, and not just because it’s an exciting new way of communicating in itself. It proves, once again, that SMS is an effective, trusted and reliable technology that’s likely to be around for a long time to come.

A great way for small businesses to develop new marketing techniques is to copy and adapt methods used by major players.

This holds true for marketing basics such as the design of your webpage (can you learn something about positioning and prioritization from the way Amazon lays out its pages?) through to demographic placement, market segmentation and campaign methodology.

Why is copying the big boys a good idea? Simple: they employ top agencies and research groups to help them formulate strategy. They spend millions on focus grouping and customer interaction to help them learn lessons. Look carefully at what they do, and you can benefit from all their research for absolutely nothing.

It’s interesting, then, to find out that 38% of major retail businesses in the UK have used SMS as part of a marketing campaign at least once. The research, carried out by mobile transaction firm mBlox, suggests that major high street operations are seeing the benefits of contacting their customers via SMS – a topic we discussed in our last post.

If anything, it seems likely that SMS marketing is likely to grow even further: Andrew Bud, founder of mBlox, says: “as our research shows, adoption of SMS by retailers is certainly off to a good start. However, with more than 56 million people in the UK regularly using text messages, the potential is enormous.”

Other interesting research that has recently come out of mBlox suggests that SMS can be particularly valuable to businesses that deal with customers on an appointment basis. A whopping 59% of Brits state SMS as their preferred contact method when being reminded about yearly appointments – whether it’s to have their cars serviced, their chimneys swept or their teeth checked out at the dentist.

Interestingly – and in line with much industry research – mBox found that SMS take-up and acceptance among US consumers is still lower than it is among Europeans, a legacy of the later introduction of nationwide SMS functionality on that side of the Atlantic. However, it seems that SMS marketing is growing in popularity and acceptance in the States, with take-up accelerating: “Businesses in the U.S. are now learning about the break-through effect of text messaging as an effective communication channel for their customers. Businesses in the U.K. have a few years head start in this respect and that is reflected in these numbers,” says Brian Johnson, mBlox’s Senior VP for sales and marketing.

Where does this leave TextMagic customers? Well, it’s a great reminder that it pays to keep an eye on major market players if you’re operating a small business – and to learn from their strategies. If you’re a TextMagic user, you also have access to one of the world’s sophisticated and reliable bulk SMS marketing technologies, meaning you’re in a great position to exploit both those markets that are already booming (the UK) and those which seem to be on a steep growth curve (the US).

Although mBlox’s research found that increasing numbers of companies are also using mobile apps for marketing purposes, it seems that SMS is likely to remain a popular technology for a long time to come: as well as being beautifully simple and easy to use (especially if you’re managing your SMS marketing through TextMagic!) it has worldwide reach and is completely platform independent – the ideal solution for marketers.

We’re getting to the point in the year when business and technology experts are looking ahead to 2011 and what it will bring – what are going to be the best strategies to pursue and the trends that will need to handled or exploited?

Right now, a very common theme in these discussions is how 2011 is going to be the year when mobile computing – and, by extension, mobile marketing – really “comes of age”. During 2009 and 2010, the large scale adoption of smartphones by the consumer market has solved many of the problems that had previously plagued mobile, such as small screens and relative lack of interactivity. In fact, because of the rise of apps, mobile has very quickly become a force that is actually shaping the way the online world works and how companies are using technology to reach their consumers.

So mobile is settling down to become a standard part of the technology landscape and an essential part of the marketing mix. What does this mean for SMS?

In considering that question, we have to think about the major benefits of SMS as a communication form. It is:

1. Fast
2. Cost-effective
3. Easy to use
4. Direct

We also need to think about how it compares with the other main mobile communications technology – mobile email – in each of those areas:

1. SMS is as fast, or faster than email. Because SMS messages are distributed via commercial comms networks they don’t have to rely on large numbers of third-party, intermediate servers that can slow down, delay or just plain lose messages. SMS is also faster and simpler to create than email: recipients only expect (and, indeed, only want) short messages, which isn’t always the case with email.

2. You might think that SMS will always lose out to mobile email in terms of price. But that’s not necessarily true: for someone away from their home country, for example, sending and receiving SMS might be cheaper than dealing with emails on a data roaming tariff. Additionally, there’s the concept of getting what you pay for: mobile email might be superficially “free”, but it eats into data allowances, takes longer to send and receive and suffers from a lower degree of reliability than SMS. There is a slightly greater up-front cost for SMS, but in many situations – especially where mobile marketing is involved – its increased reliability is well worth the (highly marginal) extra cost and actually represents better value for money than email.

3. On smartphones, SMS and email ease of use is about the same. But what about people using standard mobiles? For them, it’s much easier to receive and send SMS than email.

4. Both SMS and email are direct in a mobile context in that they go straight to the device in the recipient’s pocket or bag. But even users with push email alerts set up on their phones are more likely to pay immediate attention to an SMS alert, simply because text messages are less common, and likely to be more personal, than email messages.

With that it mind, it seems likely that SMS is going to not only remain a key technology, but actually increase in importance as mobile marketing becomes part of the mainstream. In particular, the rise of the mobile app seems to be driving an increased use of automated messaging for marketing purposes – something TextMagic customers are well placed to exploit with our bulk SMS gateway API.

TextMagic puts awesome power into the hands of your business. You can send an SMS to everyone on your opt-in list in moments, telling them about up-to-date offers. Alternatively, you can use TextMagic’s SMS API to integrate texting into your sales or sign-up process.

But, as with any business strategy, you need to think carefully about how you use text messaging, and implement a strategy rather than just rushing in. In particular, you need to be careful that you’re not annoying your customers by sending them too many texts, or texting them too often at inappropriate times. Your customers will be on your SMS list because they have chosen to be there – if you annoy them they will start to opt out and your list will shrink.

Here are some strategies for keeping your customers happy when you’re spreading your business’s message via SMS:

1. Get the frequency right
This is the single most important thing is to make sure you’re sending the right number of messages at the right intervals. If you’re running a rolling marketing campaign, about one message a week seems to be the “sweet spot” for maintaining customers’ interest without overloading them with texts.

Obviously, if you’re running a one-off campaign or using TextMagic to send SMS alerts through the API, then frequency will be affected by external factors. In that case, it’s a good idea to monitor the customer’s experience to make sure that nobody is getting too many messages. A good way of doing this is to put yourself in the position of a customer, and set messages to come to your own phone – does the number of texts seem reasonable, or is it starting to get annoying?

2. Keep it short and sweet
Even though TextMagic gives you the power to concatenate (i.e., join several texts into one to send longer messages) it’s a good idea to keep your customer messages relatively short. When you send a customer a text you are, in effect, “demanding” their attention – it’s a marketing message they can’t ignore.

Make them work too hard by sending long or complicated messages, and they’ll soon get annoyed. Keep messages short, sweet, and above all useful. If every SMS helps your customers in some way (e.g., by promoting a special offer their demographic data tells you they are very likely to be interested in) and doesn’t take too much of their time, they should stay happy and loyal.

3. Send out of hours
Sending SMS to customers in the middle of the day can be risky – if they are hassled, busy with another task or on the move they are not going to thank you for distracting them. If, on the other hand, you send messages in the evening, early morning or at the weekend you’re less likely to be an unwelcome intrusion – and more likely to catch your customers at a time when they are relaxed and receptive to your message.

4. Personalise
Personalising sales messages is a very old marketing tactic – and one that works. If the customer feels you are talking directly to them, they are likely to be more responsive to your message. You can use the TextMagic web interface to personalise messages quickly and easily by selecting the “first name” attribute and entering it into the body of the message you are sending:

This picks up the customer’s first name from the data in your contacts list and drops it right into the email. You can also access this feature via the API.

5. Get feedback
The best way to find out how much your customers like your campaign is to… ask them! It’s very difficult to decide in advance how different consumer groups will response to SMS marketing, because different generations and economic groups have different attitudes to texting in general. Consider offering a small incentive for feedback on your campaign, and use the feedback to improve and refine it further.

Increasing numbers of people are using Apple’s popular iPad as a convenient device for working on the move – or even just working, checking emails and browsing from the comfort of the sofa.

If you’re a TextMagic user, you can use the iPad’s built-in browser to visit TextMagic.com and use the web interface to manage your SMS messages. However, to make texting from your iPad even easier, we’re pleased to announce SMS Magic for iPad, a simple, elegant, easy-to-use app which operates in conjunction with your existing TextMagic account. With SMS Magic for iPad, you can send texts from your iPad wherever you have a web connection!

Why is this useful?

Apart from the issue of convenience, more and more people are using iPads as mobile productivity devices when they are on the move. Smaller, lighter and will a longer battery life than most laptops, iPads are fantastic for working on the train, in planes and in hotels – especially if used with the separate lightweight keyboard Apple offers as an accessory.

Using SMS Magic on your iPad means its easy to stay on top of your text messages while you’re out and about with your iPad. Everything – including personal messages and business-related bulk SMS – can be handled from the device. Apart from a one-off low cost for SMS Magic in the Apple app store, you only pay regular TextMagic fees for SMS messages that you send – which are often much better value than regular carrier rates, especially if you’re texting while travelling abroad, or sending SMS to people in other countries.

You don’t need an iPad 3G to use SMS Magic. All you need is basic internet access, for which a standard WiFi connection on a non-3G model will work just as well.

How does it work?

It’s easy to use SMS Magic for iPad. All you need to do is sign up for a TextMagic account and buy some credits so you can send cheap text messages through the TextMagic system.

When you first launch SMS Magic for iPad, you’ll see a dialogue screen that looks like this (image taken from iPod touch edition):

At this stage, it can be useful to leave the “reply #” field blank. By doing this, you tell the app to pick up your default settings for sending replies to your phone, email or your TextMagic inbox. You can change these easily by visiting your account area at TextMagic.com.

Sending and receiving messages using SMS Magic for iPad is easy. The only slight difference is that you need to remember to add a “+” sign when entering international numbers. If you send sent to numbers that doesn’t have an international code, SMS Magic will try to send it to that number in your home country.

So, for example, say you have a friend in the UK whose number is 07777 111222, and you are also using a UK-registered TextMagic account. You can contact your friend using SMS Magic for iPad using either:

07777 111222

or

+447777 111222

One of the beauties of SMS Magic for iPad is that you can directly access your iPad’s contacts, which you can sync with your master contacts list on your PC or Mac. As such, you don’t have to laboriously add contacts every time you want to send a message – SMS Magic joins seamlessly with your existing communications data.

The SMS Magic toolbar

It’s easy to navigate your way around the app using the toolbar at the bottom:

The left hand button checks for new messages on the TextMagic server (assuming replies are being sent to the server – if you have your central TextMagic account set up to deliver replies to your phone, that’s where they’ll go). SMS Magic does this every 15 minutes anyway, but the button gives you a good way of staying up-to-date if you’re expecting messages to come in.

The next button to the right is the reading control – press this to read all the replies you have received via the TextMagic server.

In the middle of the toolbar is a contacts button: hit this to access your list of contacts quickly when you wish to send an SMS.

To the right of the contacts button is the “delete” button, which you can use to delete stored messages to minimise memory usage on your iPad.

On the far right hand side is the is the “sent messages” button – tap this to re-read and check the messages that you have sent using SMS Magic for iPad.

…and that’s pretty much all there is to it! SMS Magic for iPad further extends the power of TextMagic, allowing you to use it in mobile work environments or informal situations away from your main PC, Mac or laptop.

In our post last Friday we had a quick look at Pew Internet’s new report on cell phone use among US adults.

One particularly interesting revelation in the report is that around 65% of adults have their phones beside them while they sleep. This has big implications if you’re a business or organisation involved in permission-based texting of your customers or members: if you send them an SMS in the middle of the night, it will probably be the very first message they read when they wake up in the morning.

Let’s consider some of the potential benefits of early-bird texting:

1. You can tie in with products or services (yours or your competitors’) that were featured on TV the previous evening.

2. Your message will reach your recipients at a relatively quiet time of day – their defences will be down and they are likely to give you a little more “eyeball time” than if they were having to snatch a quick glance at your message in the middle of a busy day.

3. Most of your recipients will be at home. So, for example, if you want them to go online and do something they will be near their personal computers – and may have a little time over breakfast to check out the link or offer you are promoting.

Of course, the results you get are going to depend on your product, goal and customer and/or membership base. The Pew statistics are broken down by age, ethnicity, education, income and location (urban vs. rural). Perhaps unsurprisingly, younger phone users are more likely to sleep with their devices next to them than older users, though the practice doesn’t drop off as sharply with age as you might think. 90%+ of people in their late teens and twenties sleep with their phones; the figure for 30-49 year olds is 70%+, for 50-64 year olds 50%+ and is still a healthy 34%+ for individuals aged 65 or over.

The stats are pretty much flat across educational levels (67%, 63%, 66% and 67% respectively among individuals with less than a high school education, a high school diploma, a college degree and a postgraduate or professional degree), but there is quite a high variation among ethnic groups. You are more likely to sleep with your phone next to you if you are a non-hispanic black (78%) or an English-speaking hispanic (75%) than if you are non-hispanic white (62%+).

If you’re interested in SMS marketing, it’s well worth having a look at the full report to see how it fits your target demographic. Bear in mind that the survey is of US adults only. However, as I said in the last post, since mobile/SMS take-up has historically been slightly slower in the US than in other developed countries, these statistics could cautiously be read as a conservative estimate of habits among European/East Asian users.

Looking for an SMS marketing or bulk texting solution? With TextMagic you can send text messages from your PC or Mac, via email, our Messenger application or our comprehensive API. And all you have to pay is a low fee for each text you send. Check out our SMS marketing services today!