Sms is dead.. long live data?

It's been a while since my last post and so much has happened globally from a marketing trends perspective, it's impossible to even start summarizing my own reflections. From case studies to general best practices, i was thinking about what best to pen down when i decided to just pick a topic and gnaw away

"Is data turning SMS marketing redundant?" . The disclaimer is i am using Singapore as the market and this only relates to trends here and not some emerging market where mobile data consumption is in its infancy. Over here, with smartphones becoming the norm and applications like Whatsapp dominating the text space, we are seeing less and less reliance on SMS as a communications channel. Similarly, with mobile internet and instant access to sites and content, sending promotional vouchers or using SMS as a redemption channel has also become less common. So, is it still relevant to use SMS as a marketing channel? SMS marketing is fast becoming known as spam marketing and now that mobile internet is widely available, what's next for SMS marketing?

As i often preach, ask 'why?' then ask 'why?' then ask 'why' again. The 'why' establishes the premise for the 'what' and 'how' and 'who'. SMS marketing is about 1 thing, database management.The more things change, the more they remain the same. Data is still an incredible leverage for any business to have. Data is at the heart of facebook's entire advertising strategy. Data is an enabler for targeted sales campaigns and provides many repackaging options. So , in this use case, creating sms opt in exercises like free alerts, free notifications for scores, updates, results etc isn't necessarily redundant. The 'what' isn't nearly as relevant as the eventual 'who' and 'how'. Then comes the other use case, so how about the reselling? Assuming you have this data, who would want to rent it if sms marketing is truly dead? That's what differentiates Spam from Smart. Targeting and re-targeting and making proper sense of the database will be how SMS can still be relevant to the end receiver. It's only spam now because the management and mining of the data is sloppy and irresponsible.

We as a community are on an alerts/notification opt in consensus. Smartphones and apps and Apple have showed the way. So to say that we are no longer a subscription based audience is ridiculous. The question is how do we manage an opt in SMS database or grow it to a point where we can segment, learn and continue to serve correct alerts for brands to engage with? There are many ways to skin a cat as a famous ex marketer once told me, and there are many ways still to establish gateways of engagement. I hope SMS marketers start to think responsibly about how best to grow a sustainable and relevant business.

Song of the day

We are young by FUN feat Janelle Monae