Has the Tide Shifted? Court Rules in Favor of Marketers Embedding Links in Text Messages
Yesterday, one major obstacle hindering growth in the text messaging medium may have been weakened and could enable the brand world and small businesses everywhere to embrace mobile messaging like never before. Last night, a major ruling was given in favor of several large brand marketers using text messaging, including CBS and The New York Times, invalidating a claim against them that they could not insert hyperlinks in text messages without violating a patent. By ruling in favor of companies who’ve used text message marketing to grow their businesses, the text messaging channel scored a major victory on behalf of all brands looking to engage using SMS and MMS to communicate with their customers.
Does this mean a shift in the tides of multi-channel communication in support of a more mobile-centric form of marketing communications on mobile devices? With the world moving to a mobile-first society, one in which the mobile device is the first and last screen we engage with and consumers’ primary source of communications, it seems inevitable that mobile messaging will continue to grow its share of marketer’s communication mix.
Recent data from both CTIA and Nielsen seem to demonstrate that the shift towards MMS and SMS has already begun. Mobile Marketers today are experiencing 95% of text messages are opened and responded to within three minutes, which is 5-10x the open rate of an average email program. CTIA’s 2012 wireless statistics show that approximately 200 billion SMS and MMS messages are sent each month, with MMS (multimedia messaging) growth exceeding all other forms of messaging, including SMS, email and push notifications.
Having powered many of the largest mobile messaging campaigns in the country over the last seven years, we have heard repeatedly from customers about the value of SMS and MMS messaging and how it delivers significantly higher ROI when compared to email and social communications. One large, specialty retailer recently shared that post-delivery of a MMS coupon to their opted-in mobile subscribers, they have customers walk into their retail stores within 15 minutes to redeem their mobile coupons. This retailer views the mobile channel as their primary channel to engage with shoppers and have been able to demonstrate its ROI significantly outpaces email and social messaging.
And yet, mobile messaging as a brand communication channel is still underutilized among the Fortune 1000, the Madison Avenue agency elite and the 23 million small businesses in America. When contrasted with more advanced mobile markets, such as India and China, mobile messaging by businesses is nearly one-third of all mobile messaging volume, versus less than five percent in the United States today.
Mobile messaging and specifically, its more engaging formats (i.e. multimedia messaging – “MMS”) seem well-positioned to benefit from this ruling and the societal trend toward ubiquitous mobility.