T-Mobile Hikes SMS Rate: What Is Impact on Marketers?

Take a deep breath, folks. There's no Twitter tax, and it's not the end of SMS marketing.

Yes, T-Mobile plans to up the rate it charges businesses to send text messages to its subscribers by a quarter of a cent per SMS, according to one service provider.

For large mobile marketers, it's not a big deal. For smaller businesses, maybe, maybe not.

Success Story – SMS marketing helps McDonalds

Marketing products to mobile phones using SMS messages has been proven to increase sales, according to a test study carried out in Sweden. Named e-street, the project signed up 2,500 mobile phone-users in the town of Lulea to receive SMS messages of special offers from 150 local organizations. After the volunteers were sent an SMS for a McDonalds burger offer, 25 per cent of the targeted users took up the offer. The McDonalds in question broke its turnover records during the test period and it jumped to the top of the McDonalds league table in Sweden.

Benefits of Mobile Marketing

Mobile marketing is a new addition to the media mix, with great opportunities for

* Anytime, anywhere communication that is direct and immediate.
* Can be targeted to particular audience groups based on age, profession.
* Cost effective
* Huge potential for viral marketing as customers tend to forward messages.
* Can be easily integrated in cross-media including TV, print and radio.

SMS as a cheap and effective marketing tool

Everyday across the world several billions of SMS are sent and most of them carry personal messages sent mostly by youths for staying in contact with their friends. But in the recent years, the popularity of SMS has increasingly spread in business sectors also. Larger companies have adopted SMS as a cheap and effective marketing tool as it delivers the company's message to its audience.

The major areas where SMS marketing is used are banks, drink firms, entertainment and leisure venues. Along with SMS, the MMS, which includes picture messaging, is also increasingly becoming an essential marketing tool by these organizations. This is possible after the development of needed software and tools that allows your SMS and MMS from your desktop through a web-based service or by using downloaded software. Through SMS marketing you can send large number of SMS at one time.

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