Avenue saw big success for a rich media messaging campaign it ran and promoted through in-store advertising, online, email and social media.

The company launched the campaign on Nov. 8. Avenue worked with Iris Mobile on the initiative.

?As the old adage says, ?A picture is worth a thousand words,?? said Cezar Kolodziej, president/CEO of Iris Mobile.

?Being able to deliver images and videos directly to any phone on any network helps strengthen a campaign's call to action and results in much higher customer engagement,? he said. ?Trying to promote anything using a 160 character message is a big challenge.

?Rich Media Messaging completely solves this problem and aligns mobile messaging programs with all other channels of traditional and digital marketing.?

How it worked
Avenue encouraged consumers to opt-in to its database by texting the keyword AVE to the short code 40679.

Additionally, consumers can sign-up for mobile alerts through the company?s Web site, http://www.avenue.com.

Opted-in customers received weekly messaging promotions that aimed to entice them to visit an in-store location and buy the latest fashions.

Through the initiative, Avenue was able to send coupons and other promotional imagery without having to worry about device and content limitations at standard messaging rates.

Results
So far, of all the messages that have been delivered in the campaign, 97 percent were opened.

The company also found that 20.9 percent of the customers that participated in the campaign had feature phones while 79.1 percent had smartphones.

Previously, Avenue used a SMS based campaign to send promotions to customers. However, by switching to Rich Media Messaging, the company found that engagement increased.

Avenue also saw that its multichannel promotional approach for the messaging program resulted in more than a 30 percent increase in opt-in list membership per month.

?Rich Media Messaging gives marketers the creative freedom to transform boring simple texts into compelling rich content,? Mr. Kolodziej said.

?As more brands explore mobile messaging strategies, they will soon replace SMS with RMM,? he said. ?We already see how Rich Media Messaging opens up new doors for marketers and helps expand their direct mobile marketing initiatives.

?This process will only accelerate as more brands start reporting results similar to Avenue.?