When mentioning SMS Marketing, it almost seems as if this segment of marketing has not been used enough lately. New 21st century digital environment forced us to focus on the online, internet world, so it looks like marketers’ eyes are mostly focused on Search Engine Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Content Marketing etc., which we can easily put under one umbrella, called Inbound Marketing.
This approach is the right one since there is no doubt online, the digital world is overtaking our lives faster than ever. The necessity to be always present, available and ready to communicate and respond fast to all questions and inquiries and to attract audience has become a 21st-century big MUST!
It’s no secret we are living in a ‘mobile world’. One of the articles published last year on dazeinfo.com provided some very interesting data points. Actually, the headline of this article said it all:
“7.7 Billion Mobile Devices Among 7.1 Billion World Population By The End Of 2014!”
Additional information revealed in the same text brings forth data that by the end of 2015 there will be 2 billion smartphone users on the planet! Just imagine this army of people using these smart devices to make their lives easier?
eMarketer gave us one very useful information that in the year 2014, 4.55 billion people used mobile phones, from which almost 2 billion are smart ones. Yes, we are speaking about smartphones. Are you scared by these numbers? We are not. This is reality, and we support it because smart devices make our lives easier, more efficient and beneficial. If used correctly, of course. With limitations (no 24/7 social media life or gaming!).
But, these numbers revealed another side of the coin as well. Unfortunately, not so shiny. These numbers showed us that more than 50% of those who will be using mobile phones would use those who are not so ‘smart’. We are speaking about feature phones. This also clearly highlights that direct communication outside the online world is also reality. The Internet is not available everywhere in the world.
We are now starting to speak about text messaging, simply known as SMS. Having in mind what we’ve said, that almost 50% of those that will be using mobile phones will use feature phones, the conclusion is easy – text messaging will be and will stay around for quite some time. Not all mobile phones are ‘smart’ and capable to easily find and connect to the internet.
Numbers can support all this: the total number of SMSs sent in 2010 was more than 6.1 trillion, almost 193.000 SMSs per second! This number became even higher in 2011 since the total number of SMSs sent was 7.8 trillion. More recent research, from April 2014, done by PennyStocksLab, explained us very important things regarding the power of SMS and MMS we tend to forget easily. So, did you know 27 billion SMS and 610 MMS are sent every day!
Are you surprised by these numbers? We are not. Because the two third of the world’s population still doesn’t have access to the internet. And if so many people are using mobile phones to keep and stay in touch without a possibility to do it online, the only way they can do it is by texting each other. And here lies The real strength of SMS!
