R.I.P. SMS 1999 - (Not So Fast)

At the pace in which we live our lives, 

it can come as a shock to remember that SMS Marketing, aka "Text Message Marketing", wouldn't even be able to vote (and no, the Supreme Court's 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission did not extend "personhood" to SMS, so relax!).  This is especially so when one hears the oft-repeated - but completely erroneous - urban legend that "SMS is dead.  Nobody uses SMS for marketing anymore.

Right.

The list of "dead" marketing methods is long.  And wrong.  SMS, like email, and direct mail, and print, aren't "dead roses" (h/t Rolling Stones) in the marketing bouquet.  Each still works.  That they don't work the way they did in their earliest incarnations is largely irrelevant.  Nothing works like it did at first.  No marketing method.  No machine.  No "person".  No human.

For example, one of my granddaughters was born in 1999, the same year that that Insequent tells us short codes were invented.  She just got her permit.  She certainly doesn't "work" like she did as a newborn, or toddler, or kindergartner, etc.  She grew.  She matured.

And so have all of those allegedly "dead" marketing methods.  Some have even "risen" from the dead.  Who, in 1999, would have foreseen the renaissance of "walking sandwich boards"?

I've written before that "‪#‎MobileMarketing‬ is the new ‪#‎MMA‬";  It's "Mixed Marketing Arts".  That includes SMS.  No, it doesn't work "instead of" other methods.  ALL of these, and everything that Local Motive Marketing (and its "sister", Phoenix Day and Night) does incorporates tools.  The right tool for one purpose is almost universally the wrong tool for other purposes.  Who tries to drive nails with a screwdriver?  Or turn a bolt with a hammer?

So I wasn't the least surprised today when I saw - in my email!!! - a Marketo article titled: "Spring Forward: Jumpstart Your SMS Marketing Campaign", or "7 Tips to Leverage the Power of SMS Marketing" from Convince and Convert Blog's newsfeed.

Don't know which tools will work best, how, for your business?  That's where I come in.

For more on SMS text marketing, click here.  Email effectiveness, click here.  Direct Mail, here and here.