Who Says SMS is for Teenagers only?

The chart below shows the distribution of SMS users by age. It turns out that 50 percent of SMS users are aged 35 or over, and 75 percent are aged 25 or over. Marketers should avoid pigeonholing mobile as exclusively for youth.

However, marketers should take age-targeting into consideration when running campaigns.

Download the entire article and learn: “More than 50 percent of WAP users are above age 34,and one in 17 WAP users is over 65.”

Text messages used to lure restaurant patrons

With consumers getting deluged with e-mail from marketers, some Long Island restaurateurs are now turning to a new method of getting through to their customers: their cell phones.

Four Food Studio & Cocktail Salon in Melville asks customers to join their list of “valued guests” and provide their phone numbers used for making reservations along with their e-mail addresses. Promising “no spam,” the restaurant wants to inform guests about special events – and those who sign up may win a free lunch.

“We’re all looking for new ways to reach our guests,” said restaurant co-owner Jay Grossman.

Grossman said print advertising and direct mail were costly and in some cases have lost effectiveness. “We’re in the world of cell phones,” he said.

A restaurant light on reservations for the night could send out a message announcing a 50 percent discount on a famous dish or popular red wine, he said. “The reservations pour in after you do a text like that.”

Also, he said customers could also show their cell phone text messages at the door to get a discount on a bottle of wine, for example.

Read entire article here.

2.9 million people received Barack Obama’s vice-presidential pick text message…

This trend, text messaging via SMS (short message service) in recent politics and in business, is a trend that carries major significance: “All of these instances of text messaging as a marketing medium prove that there are, in fact, a number of SMS programs for which a subscriber will provide their cell phone number.” R.J. Talyor, product marketing manager of Indianapolis-based ExactTarget, advises against using SMS for each and every marketing message, but under certain conditions, you might find a highly receptive audience:

Subscriber-centric communications. Even your best customers will hesitate to give you their cell phone numbers. Promising infrequent updates on topics that matter to them, however, will make them more likely to assent.

Early adopter advantage. With an SMS campaign, you’ll get extra points for being on the cutting edge. It would have seemed unimaginative if Obama’s VP pick came by email; even with some of the glitches, the text message garnered lots of interest.

You might not need SMS, Talyor admits. “But with recent, prominent uses of text messaging,” he says, “… every marketer should do their homework in reviewing text messaging as a legitimate messaging medium to add to their marketing strategy.”

No matter a marketer’s current stance on SMS, the message has arrived: SMS should be on the shortlist.  Be an early adopter. Here is an example how a meeting planner can use it for his VERY CAPTIVE audience.

Read the full article: Two Reasons Why SMS Should Be on Your Shortlist.