Bulk Mobile Messaging as a prerequisite marketing tool for enterprises

Continuous technological updations have changed not only our lifestyle but also our work style. Transformation of mobile and cellular technology has lead to the use of Bulk sms as a preferred choice by enterprises, especially for marketing purpose. Large target audience and mass campaigning have become a necessity for business these days, hence a new concept has emerged called the Bulk Messaging. Bulk SMS gateway is a system with which organizations/ institutions enables themselves for sending or receiving large volumes of SMS by using bulk mobile messaging solutions. An important thing to be focused is the number of characters used in a SMS need to be restricted to 160.The Bulk messaging service follows a specific channel with particular bandwidth limitation. The message senders can also receive delivery reports for the sent SMS. The most useful feature of this service is that a single SMS can be forwarded to a large number of people at a single point of time. Minimum number of recipient is 1 and can be increased to a large volume of numbers. Each and every user will be having a unique sender identification tag generated and the sender while sending Bulk SMS uses the same ID brand.

Bulk text messaging basically refers to an advertising medium where the organizations send single promotional information to many individuals at the same time. Many reputed companies are making use of enterprise mobile messaging for promoting their product because of its low cost nature. The advantages of Bulk messaging services are cost effectiveness, time saving, instant delivery of messages and instant measurable response for the sent SMS from the recipients. Thus SMS marketing provides a sure shot method for reaching a wide base of clients; more and more companies are using this method to reach out to their client base as it can be delivered without any geographical boundaries with guaranteed delivery to the recipients. Another advantage of using SMS as a medium of marketing is that chances of remembering SMS are higher than remembering an email and also that reach of short messaging service is very wide spread. By using a bulk sms gateway, users can deliver bulk sms’s worldwide quickly, cheaply and reliably for running competitions and marketing campaigns, sending notifications to employees, notifying customers of deals, promotions and events etc.

There is lot of potential which will enable a continued growth of Text messaging and will provide a platform upon which further new technologies will be able to stretch their arms. No organisation or a brand can afford to be left behind in the rapidly evolving market place. The use of bulk sms is the best and the quickest way to reach your customers.

ValueFirst Messaging Private Limited provides bulk SMS service solutions for large, medium and small enterprises. ValueFirst provides a unique, end-to-end, global carrier-grade mobile data service. The mobile data service offering includes "plug and play" application licensing and hosting. Employing a partnership with mobile operators and a clear focus on SMS mobile messaging. ValueFirst’s Mobile Messaging Platform is capable of delivering SMS services to virtually any CDMA/GSM mobile handset.

SMS is now an integral part of the communication strategy

Short Message Service or SMS as we all know it, is a messaging standard specified by ETSI (European Telecommunication Standards Institute). The first SMS was sent over the Vodafone GSM network in Dec 1992 in the United Kingdom. The earliest use case for SMS as a key communications channel was as an alert application by operators wherein they started sending SMS messages to subscribers to notify them that they had voicemail. However the turning point was when the operators launched the service, which enabled the subscribers to send messages from the phone to other phones (called P2P messaging). The operators started charging the subscriber and the SMS industry was born. According to Wikipedia, SMS text messaging is the most widely used data application on the planet, with 2.4 billion active users, or 74 percent of all mobile phone subscribers sending and receiving text messages on their phones.

According to Portio Research, mobile messaging is a fast growing and exciting industry, generating revenues of 130 billion USD worldwide in 2008, and this figure is set to rise to a market value of 224 billion USD by full year 2013. As per their recent report, SMS still accounts for the majority of that revenue, and SMS will remain the most dominant mobile messaging format for most of the next decade. SMS has generated revenues of 89 billion USD in 2008, and the world has seen traffic of almost 3.5 trillion SMS messages in 2008. The report forecasts that SMS will become a 100 billion USD business by 2010, and worldwide total traffic will reach almost 5 trillion messages in FY 2011, and growth will continue from there.

As the market and growth for voice services gets saturated, mobile operators in most parts of the world are focusing their attention on Mobile Value Added Services (MVAS) for additional revenues and differentiation. In the Indian context, a recent report from IAMAI and eTechnology Group@IMRB forecasts MVAS revenues to be 9760 crores by end June 2009 which is further forecast to grow to 16520 crores by end June 2010. The bulk of the revenue contribution comes from P2P messaging (37 percent), which is exchange of SMS messages between mobile subscribers. The peer/person-to-application (P2A) or application-to-peer/person (A2P) messaging contributes about 16 percent of the revenues.>>>

What can mobile do for your brand?

For years, mobile was the underachiever of digital advertising, tipped for great things but never delivering its true potential. Many brands regarded advertising on mobile phones as an afterthought, while the campaigns that did run on mobiles were uninspiring, using basic SMS text messaging to reach customers.

However, the iPhone and Google's open-source operating system Android have been "game changers" for the industry, according to Shaun Gregory, managing director of media business at iPhone service provider O2 - and the mobile advertising market has caught fire.

Both services offer fast and easy internet access on the move, and have been developed for mobile phone rather than PC users. The fashionable iPhone, for example, provides access to thousands of applications that advertisers can use to reach consumers, from virtual pints to a driving game for the new Volkswagen Polo. Last month, Apple's app store notched up its one billionth download for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

"Serious money is flowing into mobile advertising. Mobile has come of age," says Russell Buckley, global chairman of the Mobile Marketing Association and vice-president of global alliances at agency AdMob, whose clients include Coca-Cola, Procter & Gamble, and MTV Europe. He says: "Thanks to the sophisticated advertising formats made possible by the mobile internet, it is a completely different medium and is developing a new identity."

Edward Kershaw, vice-president of mobile media at Nielsen Online, agrees. "Adoption and usage are snowballing. Consumers are already open to mobile advertising, albeit with reservations. But, when they do experience mobile advertising, their ad recall is significant and the response rate high - particularly when you target specific usage."

In the UK, the mobile advertising market is still small but growing fast. In 2008, the market was worth about £28.6m, according to the Internet Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers. And Nick Lane, chief researcher at consultancy d2Mobile, estimates the market will expand by about 20%- 25% over the next year, driven by WAP sites and SMS and Bluetooth campaigns alongside iPhone applications..........

SMS become more popular like never before

WHEN I took up amateur photography, the only expectation I had was the possibility of finding a creative outlet and at best an inspiration to travel.

The viewfinder seems to have provided a great deal more than that.

My random excursions to shopping malls, busy streets, parks and even Zoo Negara in search of the perfect picture has unearthed an unusual but interesting trend with huge marketing potential.

While hoping to capture people going about their daily lives, I noticed young couples not just hanging out and spending what seemed like quality time but also doing something I didn’t expect; constantly texting away on their cell phones.

The occasional SMS when you are with your partner, I figured, was understandable but to be doing it non-stop, I assumed, was just bad manners.

My curiosity eventually got the better of me and I got into my discovery mode to find out why.

Had the rules of engagement changed so dramatically for this millennial generation? And who were they texting to? More importantly, why?

I have to admit, this empirical research has been one of the more interesting ones I have involved myself in. It’s been casual, personal, tedious yet fulfilling. Here’s a peek into just some of what I found.

With over 90% penetration of cell phones in Malaysia and perhaps even higher penetration in urban centres, it’s logical to assume that certain rules are bound to change. Marketers and advertising agencies alike need to start looking a little deeper into behaviour that this technology is affecting.

While there is no denying that broadband access through the ubiquitous cell phone is something to look forward to, it’s the simple text messaging that is altering behaviour like never before. SMS is now.

This simple application is allowing cash-strapped young people who today cannot fully explore 3G due to price to remain connected virtually 24 hours. And it is this connectivity that deserves further discovery.

Twenty years ago, we used to collect our days’ events and share them over coffee or tea in the evenings. There really wasn’t any other way to do it.

The extreme in those days was the stereotype of your typical teenage girl glued to the telephone. That image was synonymous of the times.

Times may have changed since but that need to stay connected hasn’t and is today being fed like never before.

Young people, aged roughly between 16 and 24, are sending out anywhere between 40 – 60 text messages a day.

Events in their lives go digitally public within their close-knit community moments after they happen.

These text messages range from personal issues about pocket money to more serious confrontations with bosses if they are employed.

Combine that with over 10 calls a day that sometimes complement these messages and you realise that there is very little talk about in the evening.

Personal time is increasingly becoming quiet time with short conversations in between text messages. So who are these text messages going to? Mostly common friends.

And when I spoke to them about content, it was facetious at best. The messages are mostly about nothing of significance. This may spell doom for old world romance but it also defines a powerful new marketing opportunity.

Conversations with these youngsters revealed that silence can sometimes be overwhelming and a text message, even from a marketer, is a welcome break.

The right marketing message about a sale or an interesting promotion quickly gets forwarded and becomes an event for them to gather in numbers.

As I discovered, this "Now" generation is unlikely to remember a promotion or event for less than a few hours. The stimulus needs to be timed such that it targets them when they need it. The potential for such a message becoming viral is highest in the evenings and over weekends.

For the affluent urban Millennials, this takes on a whole new face. Armed with camera phones, images are uploaded almost immediately on social networking sites like Facebook and Friendster. The time lag for participating in a social event is nearing zero. An entertaining evening is quickly populated by friends on such sites. If you are targeting young, urban, affluent consumers take heed of the speed with which social networking can turn a poor turnout into a crowd.

Find the mavens on Facebook and Friendster and cultivate them as ambassadors. The game is much bigger than merely having your brand’s profile on these sites. We need to get deeper.

Surprisingly, perpetual connectivity is resulting in a lot of free time. And that time needs to be filled with exciting events and cleverly designed marketing initiatives.

A word of caution though; just as a "happening" event can become bigger than it was intended, a poorly organised one can go from bad to worse. Digitally, bad news travels faster than good news.