Welcome to the world of mobile messaging. Bulk SMS is no more a plain advertising tool. Enterprises, utilities, schools and even state agriculture departments are lapping up bulk SMS services to broadcast messages.
Mobile messaging has become an integral part of the mobile industry, contributing significantly to mobile services revenue. While SMS spam irks most mobile users, users seem to be discovering useful applications.
“Messaging today is no longer a spam. It’s more of a utility tool. Many customers demand it. For instance, everyone wants an alert for credit card payments so that they don’t have to pay the astronomical interest rates, or an update on flight times. Banks the world over use it for alerts and are, in fact, the biggest users of SMS alerts. Many of us want updates on new products; shopping offers; movie info etc. Spamming definitely is harmful when you get an SMS of having won a lottery, or an IVR number to chat with a girl where you are unaware that this is a premium number and will cost you Rs 20 per second. We have strict guidelines against spamming and have placed spam filters in our messaging platform,” says Rajdip Gupta, CEO, RouteSms Solutions.
Messaging solutions seems to be adding to the growth curve of the mobile phone industry, which is expanding despite the global economic slowdown. Strategy Analytics’ recent global mobile messaging forecast for the period 2001-13 indicates that global consumer spending on mobile messaging services will rise at a compounded annual growth rate of 6.4 % between 2008 and 2013. Revenue from mobile messaging services like SMS, MMS, mobile e-mail and mobile instant messaging will rise to reach $130 billion.
While internationally players like mBlox based in Sunnyvale, Silicon Valley, Clickatell in Redwood City, USA, end2end Denmark and Germany offer these services, India has a large number of players, including bulksms service, mysmsmantra, smsjunction and smscountry. Some of them claim to send upto 50 million SMS every month.
Though mobile messaging doesn’t compare with other forms of advertisement in volume or reach, it is beginning to find acceptability in India. “Mobile messaging market is ripe enough in various ways. Let’s compare it with other forms of advertisement. An individual watches TV normally for two to three hours a day, hoardings and print media advertisements just go in a blink, but mobile devices are with the user for more than 18 hours a day.
So messaging is one of the biggest and most economical advertisement options for companies to opt for,” advises Sandip Gupta, MD, RouteSms Solutions.
SMS solutions are gaining popularity with companies and enterprises who are involved in banks, credit card companies, event management firms, travel agencies, airlines, product distributors, direct marketing, FMCG, insurance, courier services, hotels and resorts that need SMS technology to improve their businesses through mobile marketing, customer relationship management and field force automation.
While messaging business may look attractive, it involves a huge expense on infrastructure setup, good quantity of man power and filters to control spamming.
Interestingly, bulk SMS services are now reaching out to rural areas too. Pune’s state agriculture department, for instance, is planning a messaging service in the state by which the department will provide the farmers advice and suggestions about agriculture, such as crop, rain and pests, and even the precautions they need to take. The advice will come in the form of an SMS to the farmers on their mobile handsets. And, services like these are now available in local languages too.
As the competition increases and costs decrease, bulk SMS services seem all set for a growth wave.
• Local utilities send SMS to warn you about a possible high tide.
• Life Insurance Corporation uses SMS service to inform you when your premium is due.
• Your local club regularly sends SMS about the upcoming events and their schedule.
• Airlines inform passengers of flight delays and save them the hassle of waiting.
• Schools send SMS to thousands of students to declare a sudden holiday.
For More Details About Messaging and BulkSms visit http://www.routesms.com/
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What is e-mail marketing? How does it work?
E-mail marketing is a form of direct marketing, where the company reaches out to its customers using Internet platform and sending electronic mails. The mails could be regarding advertisements, notifications, offers or any other kind of communication. E-mail marketing is a very cost-effective and measurable process of marketing.
Direct marketing is understanding the buying behavior of individuals and reaching out to them more closely. But the difference in case of e-mail marketing and others is that the former helps in measuring customer acquisition and their preferences more accurately than any other medium, that too with a faster Return of Investment (ROI).
The process starts with an ordinary advertising mail sent by ESPs across all walks of life. The ESPs then track the number of mails received in the mailer box, the number of readers who read the mails, the duration of time spend on the mail. This performance report moves down to details like number of customers who visited related links on the page, the topics they visited and other information that they read about.
The second mail send by the ESPs (on behalf of the company) would be more customized than before. For a specific information, it will target the customers who had inquired about that information by visiting the concerned link. In this way companies will get exact number of the new customers and the probable hot leads for their business.
What are the opportunities for this offering in the market?
There is tremendous opportunity for e-mail marketing. Also because of the market slowdown, a lot of companies have constrained their marketing budget. They are migrating from television and print to more direct and cost-effective options like e-mail and leaflets. Companies are understanding that every e-mail that they receive through feedback form or a registration is a potential customer for long-term.
Globally, this digital marketing has reached to varied levels of development - in the US, it has reached to a level of maturity, while in Europe, it is at developmental stage. Asia, especially India, is at a nascent stage, but is poised to grow at a rate twice that of any other geography. Taking an example of our company, from a zero point, Sprinklr India has witnessed a growth of 200-300 per cent in past five months. Almost every week we have joined hands with a new client.
The market size of the US business would be around $ 1.6 billion business, with around 500 billion e-mails subscribed all over. Around 97 per cent of the brands have adopted this marketing method, while in India only 15 per cent of the brands would be following e-mail marketing, with total database of mailers would come around one billion only. In terms of market segment; hospitality and travel, media and entertainment and health care are generating good demand.
India's mobile subscriber base crosses 400 million
— The number of mobile subscribers in India crossed the 400 million mark in April, official data showed Tuesday, putting the country on track to reach its goal of 500 million customers by next year.
Some 11.90 million subscribers were added in April compared with 15.64 million during the previous month, figures posted on the Telecom Regulatory of India (TRAI) website said.
The rise took India's total wireless subscriber base to 403.66 million, TRAI said.
The slowdown in subscriber growth came after cellular operators withdrew special deals on offer during the final months of the fiscal year to March when the firms sought to boost revenues to help their annual accounts.
But India remains the world's fastest-growing mobile market and analysts say the government's target of 500 million mobile phone users could be reached ahead of schedule.
The total telecom subscriber base made up of wireless and landline customers stood at 441.47 million at the end of April compared with 429.72 million in March, TRAI added.
Total penetration stands at close to 38 telephones for every 100 people, TRAI said. India has nearly 1.2 billion people.
India has said it will stage its much delayed auction of third-generation (3G) wireless spectrum by year end.
Third-generation wireless service allows voice, data and video to be sent at high speeds to mobile devices and is viewed as the next major booster driving growth in India's telecoms market.
The Congress-led government had forecast the auction could raise 400 billion rupees (8.5 billion dollars).
But since its re-election last month, it has backed off that forecast, saying the global financial crisis could reduce the windfall.
India's newly reappointed telecoms minister A. Raja has also said he will seek to push cheap local mobile call rates even lower to spur cellular growth.
Local mobile calls now cost as little as one cent a minute while long-distance rates vary from two cents to four cents a minute.
Raja says he wants to cut the local rate to less than half a cent a minute and long-distance rates to about a cent a minute.
SMS we can say its greatest tool that makes direct point of contact whomsoever we wanna communicate,so that attribute of Short message service makes it different from other communication or promotinal tool.And todays environment regarding growing mobile industry is very much supportive for same. Mobile handset reached almost each corner of world.
Portability feature allows to receive SMS ,althogh handset is in other cell ,which acts as benefit over voice communication.
Today marketing companies makes better use of it to promote new products,to generate leads.
SMS :-- You can say that backbone of service industry.As it always keep customers update regarding new arrivals .
Regarding manufacuring enterprises they already integrated SMS service for them to give important alerts to there employees regarding imp issues so it speed up operations.
Wap Push(Connect to the Mobile Web with SMS)
http://www.routesms.com/ has wap push service a addition to it's mobile marketing platform that allow brands, agencies, and small businesses, mobile advertisers, to send mobile site URLs, longer than 160 characters, embedded in a SMS or WAP PUSH and measure click through rate.
Adding SMS notification with embedded URLs has many advantages: you can reach your users wherever they are, provide links to detailed rich content, increase awareness of your mobile web offering, and drive additional traffic deep into your mobile web site.
--> The URL is subject to the same size limits as any other SMS message. Keeping the URL as short as possible is the key.
--> Measuring SMS to mobile web conversion
With Routesms Url service clients can now send mobile site URL embedded in a SMS and measure click through rate.
The API automatically converts embedded URL in the SMS message to tiny URL, which then can be tracked as End-Users click on the link. The clients can access mobile site click through report, including mobile number, from there enabled GPRS Connection
1. Shortens the URL, allowing businesses to send descriptive text along with the text message to give the user an idea as to what they will be viewing when they click the link.
2. Measure bulk SMS campaign effectiveness
For More Information Contact us at http://www.routesms.com/
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