For those new to mobile, SMS is stands for “Short Messaging Service,” which is the technical term for “text messaging.”

SMS is limited to 160 characters, actually about 145 after the header and footer. E-mail has no character limit, however it does have extreme accessibility limits. The U.S. has about 253 million active cell phones in the U.S., so it’s really no surprise that text messages are opened sooner, at a higher rate, and links are more likely to be clicked.

The short term goal of a SMS campaign is always about your current campaign goals…drive in-store traffic, launch a new product, event announcement, etc. The long-term SMS goal is to capture and build a database of cell phone numbers, as many as you can, in an effort to send and schedule future outbound messages, instantly alerting, announcing, launching and linking to real-time content.

The mobile marketing association requires that every outbound message has proper opt-out information (i.e. Text EXIT to Stop). This is similar to an “unsubscribe” feature commonly found in e-mail. Since users can jump in and out of SMS campaigns, mobile marketers have responded with highly relevant information and branding to their coveted opted-in database of mobile users.

According to the latest studies, 53% of all mobile users text message, the average age is 38, the heaviest users are 18-24, and these numbers are growing fast.

Keyword Pull Campaign - The lifeblood of mobile marketing. Keyword campaigns are customer-initiated making them a perfect fit with your existing advertising campaigns: Outdoor, TV, radio, etc. Users text a keyword to a shortcode (i.e. Text MYBIZ to 99134) and instantly receive an automated reply text message. Popular campaign types:

• Loyalty Programs - A powerful, yet simple way of informing your dedicated customers in real-time with offers, promotions, new products, mobile coupons, events, and more
• Mobile Coupons - Drive traffic and sales with a promotional coupon sent to the pocket of your consumers
• Alerts - Event announcements, breaking new, scores, programming notifications and more
• Voting - Real-time vote tabulation of the player of the week, the best singer/dancer and more
• Rebound - A one-time reply message. Great for use with mobile coupons in high-traffic tourist destinations where consumers are in town for a limited time
• Text-to-Screen - Send a text message to a public scoreboard, screen or TV. Great for sports arenas, events and more.
• Pic-to-Screen - Post a picture to a public scoreboard, screen, or TV
• WAP push - Embed a hyperlink into a text message making it easy for a user to navigate to deep-linked web page
• Web-to-phone - An alternative to a website keyword pull campaign. User enters phone number on website, then clicks “submit,” automatically sending a text message.

Outbound Push Campaign - Send an outbound text messaging blast to the industry’s leading database of 100 million opt-in users, sorted by demographics, location and preferences

• Strict data qualification process - Records or qualified and verified
• Targeted by age, gender, income, industry, location and preferences
• Upload your database
• Perfect for new store openings, product launches, mobile coupons, driving in-store foot traffic, and launching keyword pull campaigns