Permission-Based & Personal; Why All Verticals Are Tapping Text Messaging To Drive Results
In brief: From appointment reminders to mobile shopping suggestions to effective mobile marketing, permission-based messaging ensures a quality conversation with people who want to participate.
We may like to think that smartphones and super-smart devices change all the rules, but companies across all verticals are just beginning to grasp (and harness) the incredible power of text messaging to reach people everywhere.
From bank statements to medical advice, from appointment reminders to public opinion polls, from mobile commerce services that encourage in-store purchases to mobile CRM services that encourage us to come back for more, messaging impacts our lives and lifestyles at all levels.
Even more exciting than the hockey-stick growth in the number and varieties of use cases and scenarios is the appearance of new and successful business models that harness permission and personal context to benefit companies across the emerging business ecosystem and – most importantly – consumers.
In my recent column for EContent magazine I draw from a series of interviews I conducted on behalf of bnetTV to highlight some new services and innovation (harnessing text) to help companies wring more value out of the mobile conversation and build a more satisfied and loyal customer base in the process.
This “personal touch” is not only super-charging new verticals; it’s also transforming mobile marketing. A company spearheading this change is Alcatel-Lucent, which (through its Optism solution) is purposely focused on making permission and preference-based SMS/MMS the most responsive and targeted, high-reaching media available in the mobile media business.
My take: Delivering messages and follow-ups (after getting people’s permission to do so) pays dividends – across all verticals. Next week I show how a new startup in the personalization space has harnessed “smart messaging” to collect and feed additional data (demographics and preferences, for example) into its engine and – ultimately– deliver the right suggestions to the right people.
READ THE ECONENT COLUMN HERE.
Disclaimer: Optism is an MSG client and supporter.
