Dan Flanegan of Brand Anywhere offered up a case study on "Mobile Email Marketing" this morning at MarketingSherpa's Email Summit '09. The first part of his presentation actually went through the nuts and bolts of SMS marketing (i.e., text message marketing), and suffice it to say that it is a VERY different world from email marketing. Not only do you only have 160 characters to communicate, but you must also navigate the wild, wild world of SMS short code acquisition.
The other critical difference between email and SMS marketing revolves around user expectation. While consumers are used to the email opt-in process, they aren't always too keen on regular communications via SMS. As a result, if you plan to have an ongoing promotional campaign via SMS, you need to use double opt-in (where the subscriber texts you, you auto-respond with a request to confirm the opt-in with a text message, and then the user replies with the required message like "confirm").
The power of SMS is often, however, in its instant, call & response usage. For instance, you have a point-of-purchase call to text in to receive a discount or enter a contest. That message expresses the consumers intent to participate in that limited program, but it does not convey a permanent desire to receive messaging via SMS. Such call & response text messaging can work great if you have a physical storefront or other physical presence.
In short, SMS is a whole different creature than email marketing. As a result, marketers in this area should dig in on the wealth of educational resources out there on the topic--including our very own R.J. Talyor's Emerging Messaging Blog where he covers the wild, wild world of SMS/text messaging, voice messaging, and smart phones.
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