Have you ever wondered why a text message is limited to 160 characters? Well it’s actually a pretty unscientific reason, but let me tell you the story as to why our beloved text messages are only 160 characters.

So back in 1985 there was this guy named Friedhelm Hillebrand, who was the chairman of the non-voice services committee within the Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM), a group that sets standards for the majority of the global mobile market. This guy had the task of setting the limit on the amount of characters a text message could contain.

To do this, Friedhelm sat at his typewriter, typing out random sentences and questions on a sheet of paper to see what the average amount of characters he used was. He found that each set of sentences, ran just under 160 characters in length. That was good enough for him, so he told his committee that text messages would be limited to 160 characters. Pretty scientific right?

Friedhelm’s methods didn’t sit well with the rest of the committee, as they doubted a text message limited to 160 characters would be enough space to prove a useful form of communication. So to calm their fears, he backed up his assumption of limiting text messages to 160 characters by doing the following “market research”.

1. Friedhelm took a bunch of postcards that he had received and found that often these postcards contained fewer than 150 characters. By this finding, he was being nice by offering consumers an additional 10 characters.

2. Friedhelm then analyzed a bunch of messages sent through Telex (a telegraphy network for business professionals). Even though these Telex transmissions didn’t have a limit on the amount of characters they were able to send, he found that on average the Telex messages were about the same length as the postcards.

So that’s why text messages are limited to 160 characters, pretty cool story huh?

As you can see from the SMS trivia response below, I wasn’t a winner, but I did get pretty close to the correct answer so I gave myself a pat on the back as my own little reward.

I love what Starbucks is doing here mixing SMS trivia into their broadcast messaging campaigns, and I wouldn’t doubt if this campaign saw at least a 50% response rate from their subscribers. Great job Starbucks, keep up the good work with your SMS campaign, and look forward to seeing more SMS trivia questions in the future.

Did you know that Charlotte Russe, the specialty retail chain store in the United States dedicated to selling trendy clothing and accessories has a Charlotte Russe text messaging club? Yep, it’s true. Recently I received the following text message from being in their club, telling me to respond “BFF” to their SMS short code 78953 to play their “Text to Win Game”. By entering their text message contest, I could win a buy 1 item, get 1 free type promotion. So naturally I texted BFF to 78953.

This is what I got in return from Charlotte Russe, which to my recollection is the longest text message promotion I’ve ever received from a business. To be accurate though, this isn’t an SMS message, but an MMS message, which is why they’re able to go past the normal 160 character limits of a text message.

A great rule of thumb in mobile marketing is to keep things simple, and in SMS marketing it’s a good idea to remember that just because you have 160 characters, or 400+ characters in the case of Charlotte Russe, you don’t have to use them all to get your point across. Most of the time, a shorter, more concise text message will have more impact than one that is much longer.

Did you know that at the end of 2012 AT&T launched a service called AT&T Alerts? This service was advertised to consumers as way to receive “Personalized Deals and Offers on Your Mobile Phone”, which as you can imagine had a few SMS software providers (including myself) shaking in their boots, as this would be in direct competition to what they’re offering brands.

Luckily for those SMS software providers (and Tatango), AT&T fell extremely short in their promise of sending “exclusive, personalized deals and offers”, allowing you to “save on what you want, where you want”, unless of course you really want to use PayPal, or rent a car. See below for the most recent eight AT&T Alerts I’ve received, and you be the judge, are these types of SMS promotions a threat for SMS software providers?

What do you think, is AT&T Alerts a huge letdown for consumers, or would you sign up to receive a lot of text messages about PayPal? Let me know your feedback in the comments section below. If you want to sign up for AT&T Alerts, click here.

How did Seattle Sun Tan generate nearly $200,000 in revenues and 4,774 new mobile subscribers in the first 30 days of their campaign? It’s actually pretty simple, and can be replicated by any business to help grow revenues and mobile subscribers quickly. Instead of just advertising for people to join their new Mobile VIP Club by texting “TANS” to 33733, Seattle Sun Tan created an attractive offer to reward new Mobile VIP Club subscribers, which was $20 off their next purchase. Who wouldn’t join their Mobile VIP Club with this kind of offer?

Was Seattle Sun Tan concerned about people opting into the Mobile VIP Club just for the initial offer, then opting out? Yes, and what business wouldn’t be if they’re offering an initial offer as attractive as $20 off a next purchase. To calm their fears, we explained that on average the amount of people that opt-in to a mobile club with a strong initial incentive like Seattle Sun Tan was offering, then opted-out within 24 hours was between 1.3 – 6.1%. That means for every 100 people that opted-in to join their Mobile VIP Club, they could expect to retain between 94-99 new subscribers, or 98 if they took the average opt-out rate which sits at 2.3%. More info about these statistics here.

Want to read more about this campaign, like how they achieved a 50% conversion rate with their initial text message offer, read/download the full case study here.

What I find interesting is that vanity short codes, even though they’re twice the price of a random short code, aren’t more popular with brands. Vanity short codes make the whole opt-in process easier for a consumer, as they’re able to look once at an ad that has a text messaging call-to-action, then to their mobile device to submit the opt-in text message.

With random short codes, it’s much more common for a consumer to have to look repeated times at a call-to-action while submitting the opt-in text message, as they may not be able to recall the 5-6 random short code. This is why at Tatango we offer the vanity short code 33733 to all of our clients, and encourage clients that are looking for a dedicated short code to select a vanity short code over a random short code.

What do you think, did these numbers surprise you? Let me know in the comments section below what you think, and if you think these percentages will change over time, or remain consistent?

Don’t know what the different between a random and vanity short code is? Check out this video to learn more.

Who doesn’t love a little Hollywood gossip every once and awhile? If you do, most likely you’ve visited famed Hollywood gossip site TMZ for your fix. If you’re a true diehard fan of Hollywood gossip, you may have signed up for TMZ mobile alerts, which sends you a text message straight to your mobile device when breaking “news” happens.

Below is a recent mobile alert that TMZ sent to their subscribers about the recent legal issues Reese Witherspoon and her husband have been having in connection with a recent police stop. What I don’t understand about these TMZ mobile alerts is why they link to their mobile homepage http://m.tmz.com, when they could be linking directly to the article that they’re referencing in the text message. This has a few advantages which I elaborate on below.

1) By linking directly to the article in the text message, TMZ will see higher click through rates. Why? When people receive a text message that includes a link, they have to make a decision about if they have time to open that link, which can be impacted by that subscriber’s mobile device, internet speed, if they’re connected to wifi, etc. By not linking directly to the article mentioned in the text message, it’s pretty obvious to a subscriber that they’re going to click on the link to http://m.tmz.com, then have to search through the articles, then click on the article that was mentioned in the text message. Way too much work in my opinion, especially when a subscriber is going to make an almost split second decision if they’re going to click or not. If the subscriber doesn’t click because it seems like too much work, that means one less visitor to their website.

2) By linking directly, and using a link shortener with built in analytics, TMZ would be able to track the amount of traffic that each individual text message brings to the website, and better yet, figure out wording, phrases, topics that generate higher click-through rates. This would then help them select stories and message copy in the future that would perform the best.

3) You have to remember that people still forward text messages, but with a generic link like http://m.tmz.com, I don’t see as many subscribers forwarding these text messages, as it’s just not valuable enough to forward in my opinion. Now if each text message had a direct link to the article, I believe subscribers would be much more likely to forward the text messages, which would drive even more traffic to their mobile site.

The only reason I can think as to why they don’t link directly to each article is TMZ is trying to increase page views, by having each subscriber go to the homepage, then click through to the specific article they were interested in. That’s 2 page views compared to 1 page view, which can make a difference to overall advertising impressions. Even with that being said, I would wager with Harvey Levin that if they linked directly to the articles, this would significantly increase the click through rates from the text message alerts, and offset the loss of the additional page views.

What do you think Harvey Levin, can we get a unique link directly to the article mentioned in the text message?

Think this a good idea for TMZ mobile alerts, let me know your feedback in the comments below.

The best part is that after 7-Eleven gives consumers the app download link, they encourage them to reply “Y” to receive 7-Eleven text message alerts. You can see how this works below in the text message.

If you’re interested in doing something similar with your own SMS campaign, check out this video on how to build a message flow that not only gives consumers information such as how to download a mobile app, but also allows you to build a mobile database. If you have any questions about this campaign, let us know in the comments below, or give us a ring at (888) 517-6345.

First though, you have to make sure every subscriber has a first name stored in your Tatango subscriber database, or instead of their first name appearing in the text message, it will just say “Friend”. There’s a few ways to make sure your mobile subscribers have a first name associated with their mobile phone number, but the most popular way is to collect this information during the opt-in process with a double opt-in, which collects the subscriber’s first name before letting them subscribe to your SMS campaign.

Once your SMS subscribers have names, then using those names to customize your SMS promotion is a breeze. All you need to do is create a new SMS broadcast and use the merge tag {1stname} within your message like below.

Just like magic, when your SMS subscriber named Joe receives the above message on their mobile device, it will be customized with his name. You can see what this looks like below, how cool is that?

Whether you’re sending an SMS promotion to one or one hundred thousand customers, this feature helps you make every subscriber feel like your SMS promotion was meant just for them. With Tatango merge tags, now you can make every message personal, friendly and most importantly this feature will be sure to increase your mobile marketing conversion rates.

Want to activate this feature on your own Tatango account, or have a question about this feature? Give our awesome sales team at Tatango a call at 1 (888) 778-9414.

Bulmers created an SMS geofence within a half-mile radius of more than 1,000 pubs in the UK that served their cider. The text message campaign was targeted at males between the ages of 18 and 34. Once potential customers were within that radius, they were sent an SMS message pointing them in the direction of their next cider. 

Over the four week period, 77,000 text messages were sent out, with 50 percent of the recipients clicking on the link in the text message. 53 percent of recipients surveyed after the campaign remembered receiving the SMS message from Bulmers. More importantly, 25 percent of recipients purchased a cider from the suggested pub, and 53 percent purchased a Bulmers from another pub recommended by the clicking on the link in the text message. Combined, that’s almost a 75 percent conversion rate.

While Bulmers’ SMS campaign was a success, there are certain guidelines you need to keep in mind when sending text message marketing messages promoting alcohol to consumers here in America. Check out this video to learn more about these guidelines.