Recent research by Portio Research found the worldwide mobile messaging market was worth US$202 billion and expects it to rise to $310.2 billion in 2016.
The key for the bulk SMS industry is the prediction by Juniper Research that by 2016, application-to-person (A2P) messaging will overtake person-to-person (P2P) messaging, being worth more than $70 billion.
A2P messaging includes messages to or from an application to or from a large number of customers in financial services, advertising, marketing, business administration, ticketing, television voting etc.
Moreover, bulk SMS providers are experiencing such a trend. "In the past year, we have experienced double the number of outbound SMS from our gateway and the growth looks set to continue both in Africa and in international markets," commented SMSPortal's MD, Charles Stretch.
It is easy to see why SMS is such an effective tool to communicate with customers, no matter one's industry. The current read rate for SMS is 97%, compared to 20% for emails, while the average response rate for SMS is 26% and email is 5% according to mobile guru Tomi Ahonen.
Tech guru Mary Meeker states the average mobile phone user checks his or her device 150 times per day. Messaging accounts for 23 of those 150 times and is the highest-performed task on smartphones, even above talking. However, you cannot alienate 80% of mobile devices worldwide, which are feature phones, not smartphones.
Therefore, it is crucial to reach feature phone owners on a global scale and execute a comprehensive mobile marketing plan.
Since four billion people are tapping into SMS, it is set to remain a key communication tool for a direct dialogue with customers.
Long-term loyalty is accomplished through personalising one's marketing messages to bridge the gap between messaging and one's audience.
Customers are more likely to buy from a business in the long term if the messaging is relevant and personal. SMS text messaging is tapping into the power of personalisation, which is why it certainly is not about to die, just yet.
