Happy Birthday, SMS! Now Get Back To Work, You Have ROI to Generate.

We woke up this morning to a sea of well wishes and happy birthday.  And why not, today marks the 20^th anniversary of the first text message ever sent, in some ways, the birthdate of our industry.

Source: iphonestic.com

A lot has changed in messaging since the first SMS was sent 20 years ago.  The first text was from a computer to a phone.  Back then SMS was used to share short form conversation – sharing small bytes of news and information between two users.

Now SMS, or its more effective counterpart, MMS is responsible for a wide range of tools.  With more than 6.7 trillion messages sent in 2012, SMS and MMS have become the defacto communication for billions of mobile phone users.   And users are no longer just texting snippets of conversation with each other.  Today’s messaging users (75% of Americans) are sharing more and more information, and thanks to the advancements in mobile phones they are sharing multimedia services: photos and video.  And they are not only texting friends and family, text messaging is now occurring regularly between consumers and their favorite brands. 

So who exactly is using commercial text messaging?  Gamefly customers are receiving shipping notifications by text message, Jack in the Box fans receive new information about new entrees right before lunchtime, Paranormal Activity 4 movie fans received exclusive scary movie trailers AND helped select the cities the movie launched in, GLEE fans receive play lists with a link to iTunes for purchase, Bloomindale’s brides are building registry lists, CMG news viewers are receiving weather and breaking news alerts, X Factor fans can use text to reach their favorite contestants, and that is just to name a few!

Text messaging, SMS and MMS, are a key communication tool to reach today’s on the go consumer.  Consumers understand it and innovative brands are embracing it as a serious ROI generation tool.

So happy birthday SMS!  Now get back to work.  You have awareness to build.  You have content to deliver for consideration.  There are sales to achieve, customers to engage and loyalty to be built.