By Cristy Burgan

According to the October 2009 CTIA Semi-Annual Wireless Industry Survey, 4.1 billion text messages are sent every day in the United States ? or about 14 text messages per person, per day.

Adding to the ubiquity of SMS is the fact that nearly 100 percent of subscribers? mobile devices are text-messaging-enabled.

A recent Forrester Research survey indicated that 74 percent of marketers preferred to use SMS messaging as a marketing tool, while 44 percent of consumers said they would rather receive product information and other marketing messages through SMS campaigns than via any other channel.

Compelling numbers such as these underscore just how much a part of our lives mobile messaging has become and why, for marketers, it is proving to be a very effective way to reach consumers.

Permission driver
Among the many different campaigns marketers are using, an emerging trend is the use of highly targeted, interest-based mobile advertisements to generate greater consumer response.

However, the key to success with this type of approach is an opt-in ecosystem, whereby customers provide their demographic information and make known their interests so that they receive targeted ads based on their preferences.

Today, marketers require permission from users to send SMS-based ads, therefore the concept of an opt-in, permission-based ecosystem remains largely untapped.

To encourage uptake of this opt-in approach, carriers have the opportunity to overcome this barrier and create an opt-in SMS program by offering incentives ? whether it is a certain number of free SMS messages per month or a certain amount deducted from the monthly bill ? and by allowing users to self profile demographics and preferences.

By offering these incentives, marketers and wireless carriers have a larger and more targeted audience that is more likely to respond.

This benefits the marketers and carriers by allowing them to create tailored content for highly relevant segments. Combined with creative testing, this will elevate the relevance of all messages and improve response rates.

Marketers are responsible for ensuring that all ads are relevant and engaging to participants to avoid losing the consumer?s attention.

Targeted SMS inventory
The first requirement in the development of an opt-in mobile advertising program is obtaining subscriber permission.

The next step is collecting demographic and preference data direct from the subscriber to create a targeted inventory.

Brands currently cannot buy individually targeted, permission-based, 160-character SMS ad inventory. What they can buy are ad inserts in free SMS content alerts.

This low-cost inventory for non-targeted advertising is readily available, but response rates are very low ? 0.5 percent ? and declining.

Generally, these ads are regarded as ?noise? by customers, and are rarely relevant to their interests. As a result, the ads go unnoticed and are not regularly checked.

For carriers to create targeted SMS inventory, they need to keep in mind these essentials:

? Permission: participants must give their permission to receive ads

? Preference: participants need to provide demographic data, plus product and brand preferences

? Relevance: the full 160 characters must be relevant to the ad message

? Incentive: a reward for allowing brands to communicate with them on their personal device

? SMS/MMS proficiency: program participants should be screened for high SMS/MMS usage

Benefits of targeted SMS inventory
A targeted permission-based SMS campaign is highly effective because it is based on real, individual demographic data ? age, gender, marital status, presence of children, home ownership and income ? instead of being based on trends or averages.

This allows advertisers to match products and brands to exact demographics and the stated preferences of participants.

Additionally, the quality of leads is much higher due to pre-qualification, and there are no associated costs for advertisers to build customer profiles and track response records.

The response rates of pre-qualified targets are as much as ten times higher than semi- or non-targeted inventory.

Carriers benefit by less network traffic and subscribers benefit by receiving ads relevant to their stated interests.

Furthermore, advertisers gain a positive brand experience as their ads are not seen as spam.

This targeted approach to creating an opt-in based ecosystem for mobile advertising is a unique marketing strategy that addresses the needs of marketers and carriers, as well as subscribers.

Indeed, it allows brands to carry on a conversation, or digital dialogue, with their customers and have access to the vast customer databases of multiple carriers for SMS advertising.

This is currently a largely untapped opportunity, but we expect to see more examples of this method as carriers and marketers become aware of the resources available to them to make an opt-in SMS strategy for mobile advertising a reality.

Cristy Burgan is vice president of marketing solutions at Acision, Bellevue, WA. Reach her at .