Brainstorm Mobile Solutions sent over 1.5 billion mobile messages to subscribers’, that’s one in every three mobile users in the world

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Mobile Solutions Exclusive : Donald Stuart, CEO of Brainstorm Mobile Solutions and Karl Whitfield, of Portio research talk to theMarketingblog

1.       What are the main bullet points from your new research?

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Brainstorm is the intelligent SMS delivery engine for many high profile mobile marketing campaigns used by the most innovative digital brands.@Brainstorm_MS  

Against a backdrop which says that SMS is dying, we undertook a detailed analysis of the activity on our platform, which allowed us to understand how big brands are using multiple channels to deliver marketing messages.

What we found surprised us.  

We sent over 1.5 billion mobile messages to subscribers’, that’s one in every three mobile users in the world, and an increase of 260 million SMS on last year, confirming our belief that SMS is still the go-to messaging channel across the globe. In fact, considering SMS was the first messaging app created, it is still universal across every phone in every country – we delivered SMS services into 198 countries this year.

We have also seen a significant change in the way SMS services are crafted.  Gone are the days of one-size-fits-all blast messaging, now the solutions are more sophisticated, personalised and location-aware.  This translates to a greater use of contextual messaging, which is controlled, highly targeted and as a result is seeing much greater success rates.

Karl Whitfield, of Portio research: “The use of SMS and MMS as a medium is experiencing significant growth and is outstripping the use of social media networks as a means to engage with consumers in a marketing capacity.”

2.      Service messaging, contextual messaging etc.  You said all areas showed improvement in the new research. Any surprises?

The use of contextual messaging is really growing within the marketing sector.   We saw a doubling in the volume of processing jobs from 1.6 billion in 2013 to 3.75 billion in the current year. This type of personalisation applies multi-layered intelligence to mobile messages using location as well as contextual triggers such as weather and pollen count, combined with individual customer needs, interests and behaviour.  

Marketers understand that it is no longer possible to send out large numbers of indiscriminate messages, if they want to see results, whether that is click-through rates or other forms of engagement. 

What is also worth taking note of is the increasing use of SMS services for a better experience in a customer care environment. Organisations are choosing to use SMS over other more traditional and cost-effective methods to allow for a quick, simple and reliable communication tool that goes directly to the customer.

I am interested in hearing how events (Football World Cup) etc. impact on the results. Examples would be great.

Mexico and Brazil were only outstripped by the UK in terms of the volume of messages sent to recipients by the brands using our platform, confirming a trend highlighted by Portio Research pointing to Latin America as one of the most vibrant SMS marketplaces in the world.

During 2014 we saw spikes in activity during the Brazil World Cup as marketers took advantage of the captive audiences and we expect to see major sporting events to continue to drive the use of mobile marketing in 2015 as we look forward to the Rugby World Cup. 

3.       Please give us your ‘crystal ball’ thoughts on the growth potential of SMS within the medical sector.

Using SMS as a means of communication within the health sector has huge growth potential, as it can help to cut through problems associated with wireless coverage and whether or not you own a smartphone. SMS in the health sector is commonly used for operational logistics such as appointment reminders for patients, with its use continuing to grow. 

The real benefit in linking technology solutions together is that it automates many paper based activities, such as monitoring medication usage and issuing repeat prescriptions, and delivering this direct to a customer’s handset. This can all be achieved through the use of a mobile platform like Dragon, which offers a valuable service to patients and substantial cost savings for the NHS.

Alongside this, SMS can play an important role during crisis situations such as the recent Ebola outbreak.  Vital, urgent communication can be enabled to vast numbers of people, using location assets that can identify and communicate with people who are at greatest risk.

4.       Your quote was ‘SMS is alive and well.’  What is your ‘SMS Health’ prognosis for 2015?

We expect to see mobile messaging continue to grow.  There has already been an 18% uplift in opt-in messaging with 556 million global users now on our platform engaging with mobile marketing; that’s more reach than Twitter, Barclays and Amazon all put together. From a marketers perspective there is no down side to SMS, however one challenge for those operating within the mobile marketing delivery space is likely to be around big data.  

With the continuing popularity of mobile messaging, there will be a heightened need to analyse the data and increase the throughput of transactions per second.  This is something which the industry will need to continuously improve on as the volume of data collected via mobile marketing strategies increases.

Karl Whitfield, of Portio research: “A2P SMS is booming as ‘the new email’, with blistering high response rates.  SMS versus OTT is a myth, there is no “versus”, they run parallel and we keep seeing the SMS volume increase as this vast quarter-trillion dollar industry keeps growing.”

5.       Generation Y, or the younger millennials. Do they represent a challenge or an opportunity?

Studies have suggested that the average attention span of any millennial is approximately 8 seconds.  These younger millennials are used to being exposed to vast amounts of data, available from many different platforms and as such need short bite sized chunks of information.

As a result SMS is perfectly geared towards this age bracket, something that brands have recognised and now deliver short, targeted messages to capture interest and engagement.

However, this same technique can be applied across the generations, as everyone has access to SMS, it is the first and universal app that we all have in common. This makes it a powerful tool for marketers to use to engage with every generation, whether it is the younger millennials or the baby boomers.

The most important aspect to note is that SMS has to be offered and used in conjunction with other communication channels, such as email, so that the consumer can utilise the channel that makes sense and allow them to respond on their terms.

“How to trigger engagement in smarter and context specific ways via mobile” / Donald Stuart, Brainstorm

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