Why Mobile SMS/Text Messaging?

What is Mobile SMS/ Test Messaging?

Mobile text Messaging, or Short Message Service (SMS), as we all know it, is the ability to send and receive text messages to and from mobile telephones. The text can comprise words or numbers or an alphanumeric combination. SMS was created as part of the GSM Phase 1 standard. The first short message is believed to have been sent in December 1992 from a Personal Computer (PC) to a mobile phone on the Vodafone GSM network in the UK. Each short message can be up to 160 characters is length when Latin alphabets are used.

Customer Usage and Market Growth

There is no doubting the success of the Short Message Service - the market in India alone has reached over one billion messages despite little proactive marketing by network operators and phone manufacturers. Key market drivers over the next two years such as the access of cheaper mobile technology to the masses will continue this growth path.

Mobile Messaging: How can your business benefit?

Enterprise Messaging

Enterprise uptake of mobile applications is set for phenomenal growth. By 2005, Gartner anticipates that 65 percent of enterprises will be harnessing the power of wireless applications to efficiently automate the existing business processes and use wireless connectivity for one or more user groups.

Statistics are already showing a considerable growth in the enterprise messaging, within the last seven quarters.

Where does enterprise messaging fit into your business

No matter what the nature or model of your business is, you can effectively exploit the potential of Mobile Messaging. Following are some examples of the application areas where Mobile Messaging is excelling:

1. B2B Messaging

Mobile terminated and mobile originated SMS and MMS via UCP, XML and PHP interface

Benefits: Using industry standard protocols provide easy integration with existing systems as well as a robust and scalable model for future technologies.

2. B2B Campaigns and list processing

Permission-based mobile marketing campaign of consumer goods, advertisement campaign, promotions etc.

Benefits: Mobile marketing provides unparallel advantage of effectively targeting specific audience level.

3. B2B Applications

Customized mobile applications conforming to a business rule and addressing a specific target audience. Example: MIS reports to mobile sales force, critical data to mobile technical work force. The possibilities are unlimited and the flexibility is enormous!

How to choose a high quality and reliable service provider for SMS/Text Messaging for your enterprise messaging needs?

The first option that comes to one’s mind is mobile operators. However, though they have complete control over network infrastructure, they are generally not too keen to service customer for meeting their messaging needs. The prime reasons for this are:

• Enterprise messaging involves complex integration with backend database/applications
• The volume of messages is typically not high (except in large B2C companies)
• The criticality of message delivery is extremely high
• Operators largely cross subsidise ‘voice’ with ‘data’ services.
• It a specific network is down, then the service suffers.
• The service need extra attention in terms of providing high service levels

There are many independent providers of mobile data services focussed in the domain of enterprise messaging that provide end-to-end SMS/text messaging service. For example, ValueFirst (http://www.vfirst.com) provides SMS/Text messaging services to enterprises.

There are several advantages of working with an operator neutral service provider:

• Easy and quick integration with back-end application/databases
• Connections with multiple operators ensure better service quality (i.e. service is continued even if the network of a specific operator fails)
• Single entry point into the mobile networks.
• Uniform application access - no duplicate efforts required
• Reliability and timeliness - Acknowledged mobile messaging with guaranteed message delivery information available
• Integrated payment - one stop shop for all billing aspects and
• Seamless and secure messaging environment.

SMS ME ON provides your new address on 56070

SMSMEON provides you the opportunity to acquire your own “FREE” unique Identity (commonly known as keyword on a short code) on the mobile. This Keyword could be a reflection of your personality or name. It is the first platform in India which allows you to choose and block a “Keyword” of your choice completely free of cost on your mobile.

SMSMEON- as the names says it all “You can SMS ME ON my Keyword which is my own personal address on the mobile to know more about me & be privy to the latest happenings in my life”. You can use SMSMEON either through the web or through your mobile.

Example: - if your name is Aakash then you now have the opportunity to block AAKASH as a keyword on the short code 56070. When someone SMSs the keyword AAKASH to 56070 then he will get the status message that has been set by AAKASH against his keyword. SMSMEON is simple to use and best way to reach out to your people even when you are on the move. Well now you don’t need to post messages in each of your friends’ pages or send a SMS to each one of them. Just update your status message through web or from your mobile, and all your friends seeking you out can get updates on you through mobile by just texting your keyword to 56070.

Priyaa Gupta CEO – SMSMEON.COM says “Just like email is a users identity on the web, SMSMEON.COM is a unique initiative which will for the first time allow both individuals and enterprises to get mobile identities of their choice on the mobile and will allow everyone the flexibility to use this identity for personal or business communication. Potentially this can be very disruptive as it will allow millions of users and thousands of enterprises to use the power of mobility in a personalized manner like they have never experienced before” SMSMEON has been launched by SpotOn Media Pvt. Ltd. (SpotOn), an initiative incubated by ValueFirst Messaging Private Ltd .

About ValueFirst Messaging:

ValueFirst empowers its customers to communicate between varied IT back-end systems and mobile phones using SMS Services. ValueFirst provides a unique, end-to-end, global carrier-grade mobile data service. Its 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.

Vish Bajaj,CEO of ValueFirst applauded and expressed his confidence in the innovative initiative of SpotOn. According to him, SMSMEON will become an integral part of people’s business card. Apart from the fun element,consumers and businesses will be able to conduct meaningful information exchange with their target audience.

SpotOn Media is a digital media company aggregating opted in SMS inventory and is one of India’s first SMS Ad Network SpotOn via its platform & device independent approach aims to establish itself as a “platform agnostic”digital solutions company specializing in communities and new media advertising.

To know more, simply log onto www.smsmeon.com

Is Latam ready for MVNOs ?

In Latin America, market size and spending levels, opposition from mobile network operators (MNO) and regulations make it difficult for mobile virtual network operators to set up and get established, and no other region in the world has fewer MVNO subscribers as a percentage of total mobile telephony subscribers as Latin America. There are several start-ups in the pipeline but genuine subscriber base could be in the range of 100,000 only for the whole region.

Nevertheless, MVNOs are making inroads into regional markets through focusing on particular residential or corporate segments, and could stand to gain from technology convergence and regulator support as means of broadening competition in the mobile telephony industry. Latin America, which already has a strong mobile base, could be expected to offer similar MVNO opportunities as other parts of the world. Let’s see where Latam is standing at in the first part of our market overview:

Emergence of MVNO in Bolivia is been driven by local fixed line operator cooperatives. These cooperatives lease network capacity to mobile operators.

Colgate Palmolive wanted to increase the brand recall of Colgate toothpaste through ValueFirst

Introduction:

Founded in 1806, Colgate Palmolive is the global FMCG giant with 200 years of spectacular performance behind it. Its revenue in 2005 was around $1.5 billion dollars, with multiple brands in different sub-segments of FMCG

Business need: Colgate Palmolive wanted to increase the brand recall of Colgate toothpaste amongst the telephonic shoppers. From a survey, it found out that 68% of the kirana stores in India offered home delivery as an option and 21% of the business of these kirana stores was generated through home delivery.

Scenario: Since it is difficult to aggressively push a brand over phone in the form of sms, retailers normally deliver the customer what he/she orders over phone. Colgate Palmolive wanted to create an incentive for retailer to push Colgate to tele-shoppers by using sms gateway. Also, it wanted to increase its brand recall among the tele-shoppers.

Mobile was chosen as a medium of communication to connect with the customer and run a loyalty program because of the high penetration of mobile phones.

The mobile messaging solution which Colgate Palmolive was looking for was supposed to meet these all requirements:-

• Secure information transfer and reliable enterprise grade infrastructure
• Operator and handset independent
• Easy integration with their existing CRM and scalable for future requirements

Solution: After carefully analyzing the needs of Colgate Palmolive, it was proposed a solution based on Web services platform. It was also proposed to develop a desktop based monitoring and admin tool for the marketing department of Colgate Palmolive.

• Web-services can be configured with short-code mobile messaging for receiving dynamic responses through sms.
• Web-services are also suited to the needs of the enterprises where data security is of high concern

With the help of Valuefirst messaging the custom development and the configuration were done for Colgate Palmolive in 6 man-days.

Read more case studies: http://www.vfirst.com/sms-case-study.php