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I sent my first text from my Dads Startac when I was in year 7 at school to the girl I fancied on her Dads phone.
It took me about 10 minutes to get about 12 words out, it was really fun though and more importantly I looked very cool.
The Penetration of SMS is bonkers with almost every single person in the UK using it on a regular basis and have been for many years.
Everyday I talk to people about mobile payments and mobile marketing and the only words I hear are ‘NFC, Carriers, Google and Apps’
The same old Rich Vs Reach argument comes up – very boring.
It seems to me that the one under utilized medium of communication and payment is the intimate SMS channel that we are all so comfortable, familiar with and in many cases have a strong affection for.
Once businesses figure out how to use SMS marketing effectively with STRICTLY opt in only messages that dove tail nicely into seemless mobile web experiences integrated with video content and 1 click payments we will see the demand for SMS go up dramatically from consumers.
It is a user experience that gives both REACH and RICH experiences engaging both Smart and Non-Smart phone users.
I HATE it when dominoes sent me flipping 2 for 1 Texts on Fridays, it is invasive and an abuse of data I gave them for a completely different reason. They have in my opinion missed the boat on SMS and I dislike them more every time they do it.
On the other hand though Imagine U2 are playing a secret gig at Ronny Scotts in London and there will be 100 tickets on sale, you will WANT to hand over your mobile number to be interrupted just once in whatever you are doing to take action and purchase. There is no better platform than SMS to do this.
At the moment I don’t trust people with my mobile number but there is trust based gap to be filled and the winner will probably be rich.
SMS is a dark under utilised horse. My guess, it won’t stay that way for long.