A weekly roundup from June 4th to June 10th of the most important articles from all around the world that have a direct impact on SMS marketing, and a couple that are just awesome!
SMS Marketing Industry News:
Older Teens Often Text While Behind the Wheel
In the survey, about 58 percent of high school seniors said they had texted or emailed while driving during the previous month. About 43 percent of high school juniors acknowledged they did the same thing.
Hooters beefs up mobile efforts with incentivized SMS campaign
Restaurant chain Hooters of America is building up its mobile database with a new SMS campaign that offers consumers a chance to win a trip to the destination of their choice. The company has been placing SMS at the forefront of its campaigns in recent years. An initiative such as this is a good way to drive brand awareness as well as get new customers to opt-in.
FEC Poised to Allow Campaign Donations Via Texts
Several FEC commissioners, including chairwoman Caroline Hunter, said they were prepared to approve the plan on Thursday, but the commission held off on a vote in an effort to get a few last-minute technical questions answered. A vote on the plan could happen as soon as Friday, FEC officials said. Under the proposal, an aggregating company would process the donations and ensure no phone number sends more than $50 a month to a federal candidate. Federal election rules set a $50-a-month limit on anonymous donations to campaigns.
Infographic: America’s Obsession With Mobile
The graphic takes a look at how mobile-obsessed the U.S. has become and includes some interesting stats. According to the latest census in 2011, there’s roughly 311.5M people living in the United States, of which more than 232M are connected via mobile devices such as cell phones, smartphones, and tablets. A full 94% of US adults age 18-44 own a mobile device, and it’s estimated that in 2012 more than half of all mobile users will own smartphones.
Dialing in to SMS Spam
The number of unique SMS scams has quadrupled over the first five months of this year – and it’s little surprise. SMS text message open rates are reportedly as high as 90% or better, with the DMA reporting SMS messaging click-through rates of 14% and an 8.22% conversion rate. Conversely, email has an open rate of only 20%-25%, click-through of 6% or less, and a measly 1.73% conversion rate. In other words, SMS offers a better ROI (return on investment) for spammers.
Red Bull energizes event registrations with mobile, social campaign
The results show how mobile can play an important role for sporting events as well as for brands looking to engage customers on an ongoing basis. The campaign generated more than four million mobile impressions and over 10 percent of total event registrants came directly from mobile. Additionally, 27 percent of registrants engaged with mobile during the event. Red Bull also used the campaign to successfully build its opt-in mobile database, with more than 10 percent of the registrants electing to receive communications from Red Bull beyond the event via mobile.
Tatango SMS Marketing News:
Top 5 Most Scandalous Text Messages of All Time
The history of text messaging is chalked full of scandalous messages, but what are the top 5 most scandalous text messages of all time? To find the answer, we dispatched Tatango veteran Alex Mittelstaedt to scour the internet in search of the most inappropriate, lewd, sexual, and most regrettable text messages sent by politicians, celebrities, and athletes. Below is a timeline of who, when, and what makes these text messages and their senders earn a spot on our top 5 list.
Pittsburgh Penguins Fan Sues Over Too Many Text Messages
By displaying a weekly SMS volume, instead of a monthly SMS volume, the Pittsburgh Penguins were in violation of their own terms and conditions when the plaintiff received 5 text messages during the first week after joining the Pens Mobile Club by texting PENS to 32623. Whoops!
Average Opt Out Rate for Retail SMS Marketing Campaigns
As you can see from the nifty infographic below, which is also in their white paper entitled Retail Mobile Marketing Benchmark Report, the average opt out rate was just over 37 subscribers (3.7%) for every thousand text messages sent. What’s crazy though is the difference between the opt out rates for SMS campaigns sent during the week and SMS campaigns sent during the weekend. On average the opt out rate during the week was only 18 (1.8%) subscribers for every thousand text messages, while it was a staggering 85 (8.5%) subscribers on the weekends.
Settlement Reached in Strip Club Text Messaging Lawsuit
A little background, in May 2011, Plaintiff Christopher Kertesz registered to receive promotional SMS text message alerts from Tootsies Cabaret Miami, a nightclub owned and operated by Rick’s Cabaret International, Inc. The terms and conditions governing the delivery of the SMS text message alerts expressly provided that individual consumers would receive no more than eight text message alerts in a single month.
