Texting To Power Off-Line Branding
Added: (Tue May 15 2001)
Pressbox (Press Release) -
Small and large websites alike must use the SMS revolution to their advantage, or risk losing valuable visitors to competitors, warns the SMS marketing specialist YourRelease.com.
The race is on as global companies suddenly realise how powerful SMS text messaging can be in taking their brand off-line and straight into the heart of an individual’s mobile device. Also, distributing the right text message to hundreds can be swiftly converted into a hit rate of thousands through viral text forwarding, resulting in highly effective ‘one-to-one’ marketing as well as attracting hosts of new visitors to your business and website.
So how are companies to compete? Fortunately, smaller inventive companies such as YourRelease.com were able to quickly take the initiative in setting up ready made, cost effective SMS management systems that can be installed quickly and easily. "We even have a system that is free for webmasters." states Peter Lockett, COO.
Music and games appear to be the primary drivers in SMS marketing, fans love related messages that can be passed on to their friends. The music industry has been quick to pick up on this fortunate opportunity to target the youth market, their key audience. They realize that friends and peer groups are key influencers and real purchasing motivators. One of the Madonna fan clubs is using SMS peer group activity to drive her releases up the chart, while in the UK, the massive ‘Pop Stars’ phenomenon ‘HearSayClub.com’ is doing the same using MoTexT from YourRelease.com.
The power of SMS messaging and the associated viral marketing benefits of message forwarding cannot be under-estimated. Predictions vary, but it’s thought that there will be more than 60 million users of wireless data devices in the United States within three to five years, an increase from 4.1 million in 2000. In the UK, where SMS has boomed over the past 24 months, about 50 million messages are sent every day. Ten pm is the peak time, when people text each other "goodnight". The number of wireless Internet users worldwide will top 730 million by 2005, up from just 40 million this year, according to a report by eTForecasts.