Roadblocks to Marketing with SMS

Traditional mass media like newspaper, radio, and television are struggling to maintain their share of the marketing budget. Meanwhile, new media marketing budgets are growing by leaps and bounds. Marketing via SMS (Short Message Service) is currently one of the fastest growing forms of marketing communication in the United States. Yet companies embracing SMS are encountering road blocks as they attempt to expand their services and offerings.

Last year during American Idol, 74 million Americans voted for their favorite artist via their mobile media and SMS. Yet many in the U.S. who tried to vote via SMS short codes found that their cellular company did not recognize the short codes. Therefore, millions of potential marketing messages were drawn to the wayside due to message roadblocks.

It seems hard to believe, but every SMS short codes needs to be "approved" by individual cellular providers before their cellular network will be able to receive the short code from a mobile user. This process can take anywhere from six to 12 weeks. The company providing these services is called a cellular aggregator or mobile transaction network. MBlox, the largest aggregator in the United States and Canada, has aggregated agreements between thousands of SMS content providers and more than 500 mobile operators in 180 countries.

Yet often the aggregators are a roadblock to successful SMS marketing campaigns. Take MSnap Interactive for example. MSnap is a mobile marketing technology company that enables traditional media and advertisers to engage consumers in an interactive dialogue. Founded in 2006, MSnap's mobile ad delivery and management platform utilizes the largest national network of affiliate radio stations - with the potential to reach more than 100 million listeners per week. Yet MSnap’s short code will not work with the cellular provider Unicell. While relatively small, Unicell still has nearly a million customers. Those same customers cannot join the reality TV crowd in voting for their favorite American Idol, Big Brother Choice, or even to the latest CNN poll.

Before SMS marketing becomes truly mainstream, these roadblocks must be overcome. Everyone in the U.S. must be able to send short codes and SMS texts without problem. If people do continue to experience problems after numerous attempts, they will just assume “it doesn’t work” and give up. This will certainly slow the development of SMS and mobile marketing as a whole throughout the U.S.