Archive for the ‘Text Message News’ Category

A May, 2010, study by Pew indicated that 72% of Americans use text messaging.  That was a 4% increase over the year before.  What do you think it will be up to this year?

North Pole – Who’s the greatest businessman of all-time? 

No, it’s not Henry Ford, nor is it John D. Rockefeller.  Bill Gates?  Donald Trump?  Richard Branson?  Mark Zuckerberg?

Give me a break.

The greatest businessman of all time is, without a doubt, Santa Claus.

Think about it.  His customers return year after year.  He has a factory that churns out toys 24/7 with little overhead.  He has loyal employees; of course, there aren’t a lot of jobs in the world in this tough economy, so imagine how hard it is for elves these days. 

Santa Claus has a promotions department that secures prime visibility in crowded malls and gets him grand marshal positions in parades all over the world.  He also has a public relations staff that writes songs, poems, and even produces movies and television shows with him as the star.  His stamina is amazing and there are no banned substances in his body, unless you count thousands of chocolate chip cookies!

He’s an advertising genius.  Just watch TV in December and see how many commercials he’s on.  I’ve seen him drinking Coca-Cola for years now and am still amazed how he can balance himself on that Norelco razor after all the junk food he eats!

And talk about customer service.  It’s the best in the world.  No waiting on hold to talk to his telemarketers with an Indian accent named “Bobby.”  He knows what you want, often without your even telling him.

But, sometimes I think Santa Claus is slipping a bit the past few years.  He hasn’t really embraced html5, smartphones, social networking, or any new technology very well.  I think he’s one of only about 15 Americans that don’t have a Facebook account. 

His workers still use basic tools from the pre-Industrial Revolution.  His mode of transportation still involves harnessed livestock that takes a treacherous route around the world.  Call the ASPCA!

And, don’t tell me one animal with a light bulb on his nose is innovative.  His ordering process is downright archaic.  I mean, who writes letters any more? 

What Santa Claus needs is mobile marketing.  Worldwide, 5 trillion text messages are sent each year, but how many of you have ever received one, or sent one, to the North Pole?  Even Verizon can’t hear you now at the North Pole. 

Did you know that 18% of those 5 trillion text messages are considered commercial text messages?  Don’t you think a broadcast text message would be a great way for Santa to get rid of some of his closeout inventory?  I hear there’s a warehouse at the North Pole that still has half a million eight-tracks and cassette tapes in it!

Did you ever watch the late news on television on Christmas Eve?  There’s usually some cheesy graphic there with a picture of Santa flying over some other country.  In the eastern United States, I think he’s usually in the Czech Republic during our 11 o’clock newscast. 

Well, I’m an insomniac and I often stay up late multi-tasking on my laptop while watching the History Channel or ESPN—even on Christmas Eve.  I would love to get a text message to know when Santa is getting close to my hometown so I can get to bed on time.  If Southwest can notify me of its flight arrivals by text message, I would think Santa could announce the progress of his reindeer with all those clever little engineers he has on staff.

Ordering is another issue.  How many of you still have envelopes and stamps in your house?  It’s been so long since I sent a letter that I have no idea how much it costs to send a letter.  How much postage do you need to put on a letter to the North Pole anyway?  It’s not even on the USPS.com web site; I checked.  Plus, there’s the issue of the post office losing your snail mail which happens an awful lot this time of year. 

By the way Santa, I’m still waiting for the Benz I asked for last year.  I knew I should have sent my Christmas list by Fed Ex.

With text messages, we could send in our Christmas lists to Santa Claus through a short code, say 72682 (S-A-N-T-A).  With an easy-to-use mobile marketing solution like this, Santa could confirm receipt and even tell you if you’ve been…bad or good. 

Maybe that’s what happened to my Benz.

Bob Bentz is president of Advanced Telecom Services which provides a do-it-yourself mobile marketing network 84444.com to advertising agencies.  He is a father with two children and he still believed in Santa Claus until last year when his Benz never arrived.

If you are looking to traditional American values, the Hispanic market may be the equivelant of the 1950′s in America.

The median age of Hispanics is 28 — the same as it was for America in 1955, right after the post-war baby boom. 34% of Hispanics are children. Hispanics more often live in large, traditional, married-with-children families with participation from grandparents in the family unit. The average Hispanic family has 4.0 members compared to 2.9 members in the average White family. Only 4% of Hispanics live alone, compared to 15% of Whites.

Hispanics now make up 50 million Americans; that’s one in six residents! Since 2000, the Hispanic population in the USA has increased by 42%! That compares to the non-Hispanic population which increased by just 5% in that time period. In fact, Hispanics have now replaced African-Americans as the second largest consumer market in the USA.

What’s more important is the continued Americanization of the Hispanic population. Today, 91% of all Hispanic children were born in the USA, as compared to just 47% of their parents.

The market is also easy to reach, similar to the neighborhoods of ethnic groups in the past. 76% of all Hispanics live in just 8 states — California, Texas, Florida, New York, Illinois, Arizona, New Jersey, and Colorado. In fact, half of all Hispanics live in California and Texas.

We’ve previously discussed how Hispanics tend to have cellular phone bills that are larger than non-Hispanics. This is because Hispanics are more likely to not have a landline phone. Not surprising, given the young and urban concentration of Spanish-speaking adults and children.

The American Hispanic population is split down the middle in terms of the language that they prefer to speak.  About half actively speak both English and Spanish, but often speak Spanish at home with family.  On the other hand, half prefer to speak Spanish. 

Reaching Hispanics with Spanish speaking advertisements is definitely the preferred method.  While the ethnic group will speak English, its important to also offer them marketing and advertising in Spanish.  It will also help make your marketing message stand out from those brands that don’t bother to market directly to this important market segment.

That’s why 84444.com believes that you should target your mobile marketing to Hispanics as well…with Spanish messages.  To not do so, means you are missing out on an important and growing segment of the US population.

One of the things that Advanced Telecom Services’ president Bob Bentz does in his personal time is coach baseball.  Bentz is also a regular user of the 84444.com mobile messaging product to reach his youth baseball players.  In this blog post, Bentz wonders why every baseball coach doesn’t use text messages to reach their players when a rainout occurs.

The best way to notify baseball players of a rainout is by text message.

I have been coaching baseball for 16 years.  It has been a big part of my life.  Sure, it takes a lot of time, but perhaps I’ve made a small impact on young men in our area so that makes it all worthwhile.

My first opportunity to coach was in Little League.  One of the most fun evenings of the year was when the coaches got together for the preseason draft of talent.  In the early rounds, it was all business, with coaches monitoring spread sheets of ratings of pre-teens generated by their previous season coach.  The strategies used by the local coaches were not much different than the ones utilized by the general managers at the Major League Baseball winter meetings.

The later rounds were met with a much different rating system.  In the later rounds, the players were all inept so coaches were more apt to rate their selection based on GLM’s — good looking Moms.  But, no matter how good looking their Mom was, there was one kid that would never get picked until the final selections.  These were the ones that didn’t have email!  There’s no way a coach wanted to add to his work by having to make a phone call to notify the player’s family that practice or a game was cancelled due to rain.  Email was just so much…easier.

This weekend, my Junior Legion baseball team had a home and home series against another local opponent.  My club was home on Saturday and we were to play away on Sunday.  After the conclusion of the Saturday game (we won 5-1 by the way), the other coach and I talked about the impending rain storm predicted to hit the Philadelphia area on Saturday night.  We agreed that the outlook for playing the Sunday game was not promising.  The opposing coach lamented about how he dreaded having to call 18 players if the game was rained out!

“What year was this guy living in,” I thought.  I hadn’t been calling players for over a decade, or at least since every player on the team had email.  And, a few years ago, I even gave up email, preferring to send a broadcast text message instead.

Email is so yesterday with today’s teens.  If I were still sending email to my baseball players, they’d find out a week from now about the cancellation, because that’s about as often as teenage boys check their emails today.  That’s why I communicate with my players on the medium of their choice–text messages.  Moreover, a text message reaches the player immediately no matter where they are.  94% of all text messages are read immediately upon receipt.  Email certainly can’t make that claim!

If Little Leagues, Cal Ripken leagues, American Legion baseball teams, or travel baseball teams are looking for the best way to reach their players, then the only way to do that in today’s fast moving society is with text message broadcasts.  

I can’t imagine coaching a baseball team and having to make 18 phone calls when a game or practice was rained out.  

Perhaps, that other coach is still having his team use wood bats too.

Mobile marketing to aid humanity

Hitherto, it was thought that premium SMS service is used only for mobile marketing and game shows on television. Sadly, it took an unfortunate tragedy like the earthquake in Haiti to prove otherwise. As every dark cloud has a silver lining, the upheaval in Haiti has highlighted the human side of mobile marketing. USA donated over $30 million to Haiti earthquake victims and a major chunk of it was garnered through premium SMS service. Red Cross alone raised $27 million through premium text messaging service.

Simple and quick method

Probably, this was the first time in the history that such a huge aid donation was raised within such a short time; and that too it involved no physical efforts but a few presses of a mobile keypad.

It involved a simple interactive bulk text messaging from the aid collector agencies. They collaborated with mobile marketing services for sending premium SMS. Mobile users across the US received a text message asking them to donate to Haiti earthquake victims. All that mobile users needed to do was to reply by a text message if they were interested to donate. $10 was charged to their mobile bill for the month. It was as simple as that.

It took a few seconds per mobile user to key in the reply, from wherever they are, and whenever they wanted. This simple and quick method invoked the sea of humanity and resulted in the deluge of donations.

Advertisements and endorsements

Amidst the plethora of text messages that the mobile users receive everyday, it was very likely that they neglect or delete altogether the message for the help. So, in order to pump up the visibility and response to the message various mobile marketing campaigns, advertising on national TV and celebrity endorsements were undertaken.

First Lady Michelle Obama turned spokesperson for the Haiti earthquake victims. She appealed to the people on a television show ‘24’. The National Football League play-off games were also used as a platform for the appeal. Unbelievably, it resulted in almost half a million donations per hour via text messaging service during the games.

Crucial tool in critical situations

Premium SMS service and other mobile marketing tools like mobile advertising, mobile marketing campaigns, bulk SMS, etc. are proving to be very handy during critical times, owing to their wide reach, easy usability and anytime application. It has already proven beneficial in strengthening the bond of humanity. It has crossed all the barriers of cast, creed and color to amass huge help through premium SMS donations to Haiti.

A recent text message voting application run by Advanced Telecom Services, in conjunction with adidas, chose the ski goggles that a British athlete will wear in the upcoming Vancouver Olympics.

Fans voted by text message for one of many ski goggles that were designed by artists from around the world.  The top ten vote getters were then sent to adidas which chose the winner.  The winner will receive a $20,000 contract and his goggles will be worn by a British skier in Vancouver in February.

John Felipe of Portugal was the winner of the contest with a striking design that used the colors of the Union Jack.

You can see Felipe’s winning adidas ski goggle design here.

The response by the American people to make a text message donation for the ravaged people of Haiti has been nothing short of phenomenal.  Reports today indicate that over $30 million has been

raised through premium SMS text message donation services for Haiti.

First Lady Michelle Obama has appeared in prime time commercials promoting viewers to Text HAITI to 90999 and donate $10.  The Obama campaign knows a thing or two about mobile marketing; it helped launched President Obama into the White House during the 2008 election.

“Raising this amount of money $10 at a time is a true testament to the American spirit,” Jeffrey Towers, American Red Cross chief development officer, said in a statement. “The success of the mobile campaign shows the powerful impact and opportunity this channel can have on fundraising.  The needs in Haiti are tremendous and we want to thank the people who continue to donate and help the American Red Cross meet that need.”

84444.com and Advanced Telecom Services has announced that it will donate 20% of all net revenue received from text message donation programs in February 2010 to the victims of the earthquake in Haiti.

The following is an updated list of relief organizations that are accepting Haiti relief contributions via SMS:

In the US:

• Text the word “Haiti” to 90999 to donate $10 On behalf of the American Red Cross in the U.S.
• Text the workd “HAITI” to 864833 to donate $5 On behalf of the United Way
• Text the word “Yele” to 501501 to donate $5, or text the word “Yele10” or “YeleTen” to 501501 to donate $10 On behalf of the Yéle Foundation, the leading contributor to rebuilding Haiti founded by Wyclef Jean
• Text the word “QUAKE” to 20222 to donate $10 On behalf of The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund
• Text the word “Haiti” to 20222 to donate $10 On behalf of the Clinton Foundation Haiti Relief Fund
• Text the word “Haiti” to 52000 to donate $10 On behalf of the Salvation Army
• Text the word “Hope10” or “UNICEF” to 20222 to donate $10 On behalf of UNICEF
• Text the word “Haiti” to 40579 to donate $10 On behalf of the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB)
• Text the word “Save” or “Safe” to 20222 to donate $10 On behalf of Save the Children Federation, Inc.
• Text the word “Give” or “World” to 20222 to donate $10 On behalf of World Vision Inc.
• Text the word “Haiti” to 85944 to donate $10 On behalf of the International Medical Corps
• Text the word “Haiti” to 25383 to donate $5 On behalf of the International Rescue Committee
• Text the word “Oxfam” to 25383 to donate $10 On behalf of Oxfam America, Inc.
• Text the word “PP” to 25383 to donate $10  On behalf of Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere, Inc. (CARE)
• Text the word “Americares” to 25383 to donate $10 On behalf of Americares, Inc.
• Text the word “Habitat” to 25383 to donate $10 On behalf of Habitat for Humanity
• Text the word “Give” to 25383 to donate $10 On behalf of the MTV telethon
• Text the word “AJWS” to 25383 to donate $10 On behalf of the American Jewish World Service
• Text the word “LWR” to 40579 to donate $10 On behalf of Lutheran World Relief

In Canada:

• Text the word “Haiti” to 30333 to donate $5 on behalf of the Plan Canada
• Text the word “Hope” or “Monde” to 45678 to donate $5 on behalf of World Vision Canada
• Text the word “CAHAITI” to 20222 to donate $5 on behalf of the Clinton Giustra Sustainable Growth Initiative
• Text the word “Haiti” to 45678 on behalf of the Salvation Army in Canada

The 84444.com team had a celebratory dinner last night (January 6,

2010) at local restaurant Fleming’s.  The 84444.com mobile marketing team was there to celebrate its outstanding growth in 2009 and to welcome the new  year.

Significant growth was made in the areas of text message marketing, mobile coupons, and text message sweepstakes in 2009 and 84444.com is even more confident that its growth in 2010 will exceed that of 2009.

Thanks to the 84444.com mobile marketing team for a great year!

84444.com — Your Message on the Move

If you think your teenage daughter sends a lot of text messages, think again.  It’s nothing compared to the amount of text messages being sent worldwide.

Figures released by the CTIA show that during the first six months of 2009 over 740 billion text messages were sent!  That breaks down to about 4.1 billion text messages per day!  That’s 17 text messages per cell phone, per day!

And, while we are texting more, people are actually talking less.  Average call length for cell phone calls topped 3.13 minutes in 2007.  In 2009, with the increase in text messages, average talking time dropped to just 2.03 minutes.

Don’t Text and Drive

If you live in Illinois, New Hampshire, or Oregon, you are no longer able to

send or read text messages while driving as of January 1, 2010.

Illinois, New Hampshire, and Oregon are just three more states that have recognized just how dangerous it can be to text and drive. Unfortunately, its a situation that continues to be a problem that is making our roads increasingly dangerous.

A recent study showed that 20% of drivers still send text messages while driving, despite the obvious danger that it imposes.  Moreover, 44% of all drivers read text messages while driving.

This is despite a University of Utah study that showed that drivers who text and drive at the same time are six times more likely to be involved in an accident.

At 84444.com, we love text messages.  84444.com is, however, adamantly opposed to any form of text messaging while driving and we hope that all of our customers refrain from doing so.