You Need Mobile Marketing. Traction Can Help.

Whether you're a novice text messager, or have masterful task-messager (texting while simultaneously involved in one or more activities), you can't deny that the entire world (well, 2.4 billion of the people in it) seems to revolve around a cell phone's keypad.

Sure, this is aggravating at times. Like when you get stuck at a red light because the texting driver (driving texter?) has a quicker finger-phone reaction time than foot-pedal.

But you can't complain when all you have to do to vote for your American Idol idol or Dancing with the Stars star (poor Warren) is text the number "3" to the show's personalized shortcode, a 6-digit digital recipient.

The widespread popularity of SMS messaging, aka text messaging, is almost reason enough to leverage mobile marketing for yourself or your business, but we won't stop there.

Here are the Top 10 reasons (and 1 to grown on) you need mobile marketing:

1. Reach - nearly 9-out-of-10 people in US have a cell phone. That's more than have cable TV, home Internet, and PC's.
2. Acceptance - 70 billion texts are sent in the US each month, and 850 billion globally. More than 75% of 16-24 year olds text.
3. Prevalence - there are more wireless devices than computers and televisions combined.
4. Affordability - considering the reach, acceptance and the highly-targeted nature of shortcode SMS, the medium is one of the most reasonable available.
5. Response - compared to traditional call-to-action campaigns, more than 5x as many people respond to text messages.
6. Interactive - nearly 95% of text messages are read. By providing a Shortcode, a 5-6 digit personalized number, the recipient receives your message and responds with a specified keyword to receive your discount or benefit. A two-way conversion is created.
7. Automated - you can schedule in advance when you would like your message(s) to be delivered.
8. Permission-based - your recipients must opt-in to receive your messages; therefore, they want to hear from you and are giving you permission to be a part of their life.
9. Targeting - the mobile medium is an inherently intimate medium where you are given communication permission by those who want to hear from you, so you're not wasting ad dollars on people who don't care what you have to say or offer.
10. Mobile Web - as more and more people upgrade to Internet-ready cell phones, mobile marketing becomes immediately gratifying - a message is received, researched, and acted upon in a matter of moments.
11. New - shortcode sms is a fairly new marketing medium. Harnessing its power shows the audience that you're smart, progressive and cool. And it shows your competition how much ahead of them you really are.

Being that you're probably an intelligent business owner/marketer looking for new ways to reach an audience, it's a safe bet that that Top 10 list (and 1 to grow on) had some kind of effect on your marketing psyche. Which is exactly where Traction comes in to make sure you're leveraging this medium for the highest possible return.

Traction can:

• Purchase your client-specific shortcode (the 5-6 digit number your recipients respond to in order to receive discounts and prizes, enter contests, etc.), or let you use our own for a quickly implemented campaign.
• Attain keywords (the word your recipients must text back to your shortcode) to generate lists or groups. 
• Create effective auto-reply messages that send to incoming texts about contests, surveys, discounts, etc.
• Schedule outgoing texts to specified groups or lists.
• Create administrator roles to enable campaigns to be sparked and run via a client's mobile phone.
• Turn you into an SMS marketing guru in no time flat.

Lastly, when you consider the fact that more than 50% of consumers said they would trade their internet usage for a slick mobile device, well, let's just say 'You had us at Shortcode.'