Marketers are often afraid of the newest technology that will render their past investments wasted and their tactics, such as email blasts, obsolete. Text message campaigns do not have to be that new threat. Instead, they can be powerful tools that enhance both outlets in the process.

The truth is that the possibilities of what mobile can offer are only growing, and rapidly. The channel offers direct marketing at its best: reach to a mass or targeted audience virtually anywhere, a remarkably high "open-rate," and the ability to drive specific, instant action. It is unfiltered. It is intimate. It is relevant. And it is quite understandable why marketers who so often turn to email are uncomfortable. Instead of shunning it and living in denial, a better approach is to add mobile as a weapon to your consumer interaction arsenal, and make both avenues collectively stronger.

Text solves email's shortcomings
While text messaging may not be the shiniest or most recent mobile marketing avenue, it is still by far the most prevalent and bears the greatest similarities to email marketing. According to CTIA, in the U.S. alone, there are over 262 million people who collectively send over 75 billion text messages each month. That is a staggering potential audience. Further, the portable nature of mobile, and immediacy of delivery, offers the opportunity for time-specific marketing with a greater impact than other media. For example, a fast-food chain can drive New York customers to its locations during late afternoon dead times with a 3 p.m. reach-out. Or a retailer can create an "impromptu" two-hour sale, starting right now. The simple vibration of the incoming text message enables this mobile reach, beyond the vast minority community of smart-phones that can receive email.

This one platform solves the challenges that email marketing has long faced. First, the text environment is virtually spam-free, due to wireless carrier enforcement, and current phones lack bulk-text message filters. In addition, the consumer's trained behavior is to open each received message. These elements, when factored together, dramatically increase the possibility of a marketer's message being read.

But to maximize the effectiveness of the interaction, a brand can not simply re-apply a clichéd email blast-to-the-masses technique. The inherent differences of the two channels require a change in approach, language, sensitivity, and action in order to tap into the potential power and consumer connection.

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