Premium SMS allows a business to monetize its mobile content. It is the entrepreneurial wave that is currently engulfing the industry, and companies must join or be left behind. Ringtones are premium SMS. American Idol uses premium SMS. All commercials that show a truncated call number (usually five or six digits) use premium SMS. Premium SMS is what your company needs to improve its profit margin.
“SMS” simply stands for Short Message Service. An SMS is typically only 160 characters (including all spaces, letters, numbers, and punctuation used in the message) and is often referred to as “text.” Over the last few years, people have become obsessed with SMS in a way that no one expected. BlackBerrys offer full keyboard capabilities, allowing users to constantly text and message while at the movies, in meetings, and even having dinner with family and friends. Texting while driving has become so overwhelmingly popular (and potentially dangerous) that laws are being put in place to ban it. Most Americans can be contacted, at any time, through a text message. Companies and individuals have been using SMS to reach their customers for years; Companies like Verizon send their customers bills and account updates via text message, and banks like Bank of America can set up your account to receive text messages with account updates for balances, deposits, and general activity. Beyond that, one only has to look at the runaway success of Barack Obama’s media campaign (including member text message updates, emails, Facebook and Twitter integration) to see how immensely powerful SMS can be when are applied correctly.
Take that model and apply it to monetized premium content. American Idol is undoubtedly one of the shining examples of the success of premium SMS. For a small fee, users can text their choice to a predetermined number and then those results are polled and compiled so that the American Idol company can analyze the numbers in search of a winner. Not only do they make a huge profit from this, but they also advertise their product and generate a huge audience engagement response, leading them to consistently top viewer ratings and be one of the most successful shows on TV, possibly not for what they are. showing but how they allow each event to be oriented towards the user and the user experience. Getting your audience or customer base to respond to you via text is an incredibly powerful tool.
Think of it like coffee. If your audience or customer base thinks you have something they frequently need and can’t live without, they’ll pay you for it. Today’s Americans expect coffee to be offered in a super-convenient format, and with the onslaught of phone-compatible services, they expect almost everything to be accomplished, for one price, in a phone-compatible service. Your business can capitalize on this perception by offering its services and products in a premium, phone-friendly SMS format for convenience. There are many options for using this format; whether it’s something your customers can instantly access on their phone (like eBooks, ringtones, music, etc.) or something they can buy or access from their phone (like eBay or bank templates), whatever you have, you can offer it to your customers in mobile content-optimized packages.
Premium SMS can also be used to help you collect information about consumer responses to different questions (remember that American Idol is just a voting machine after all). You can use alerts to generate buzz about a new product, sale or event, you can use chat for customer support, you can even just update your customers and consumers on the latest news or information. Whatever your business needs to reach more people, premium SMS is a modern and powerful tool to get it done. Never underestimate the telephone addiction of Americans; instead, monetize it with premium SMS.
