The mobile phone remains the most personal item that we carry around with us at all times – it’s not like a newspaper or TV, our mobile phones have nearly 100% of our attention.

A single SMS is only 160 characters long – it therefore may not even cross your mind to focus on getting the content right. The reality is that the more creative and legitimate the content is, the better it performs.

By simply changing the creative content or timings of your SMS activity can quickly make a radical difference to the end results. When planning your A/B tests, consider as many of the elements below as possible;

We’ll head up to North Wales on Friday 6th and after a night’s sleep in a Youth Hostel we’ll be up at the crack of dawn to walk up Snowdon (1085m high). Then a quick hour’s drive to Cadair Idris (893m) to walk up that great peak. Another 2 hour drive will take us to our last hill, Pen-Y-Fan (886m), in the Brecon Beacons.

It’s fair to say we’re a “mixed ability” bunch when it comes to walking, so it will be a real challenge – individually, and as a group. I’m sure we’ll get wet, probably muddy and blistered on our feet, but it will be a chance to walk up some great hills in good company.

Esendex has chosen a new charity to support this year – Action on Hearing Loss. They were formerly known as the Royal National Institute for the Deaf.

Any donations would be really appreciated, you can donate via the Just Giving Esendex webpage.

Esendex practice walk!

Increase your newsletter sign ups by getting your customers to text a specific Keyword (e.g. NEWS) to an SMS Short Code, in order for them to subscribe.  You can advertise the SMS Short Code in your promotional materials. It will then be possible to notify them via text message when newsletters are released. You could even send a hyperlink to direct them to the online version of the newsletter itself.

This will help ensure customers are always up to date with the latest news and developments within your business.

We’ve picked our top ten!

1. 87% of the global population are mobile subscribers (5.9 billion people).

2. Mobile phone sales increased in 2011, with the sales smartphones highly significant in this regard. Nokia remains the number one handset manufacturer. Android is the most popular smartphone operating system and Samsung is the leading smartphone hardware producer.

3. Up to 1.2 billion of the world’s total mobile users access the internet through their phones (mobile broadband). Asia is the clear leader in this regard, with South Korea and Japan accounting for the highest mobile broadband penetration, with 91% and 88% respectively.

4. 8.49% of global website hits are made through mobile devices.

5. Up to 480.6 million users sent emails through their mobile phones in 2010. That figure is expected to quadruple by 2015.

6. In 2010, up to 6.9 trillion SMS messages were sent, as MMS accounted for 249 billion that year. Despite rumours of a crisis, SMS traffic was expected to reach 8 trillion in 2011.

7. The worldwide mobile messaging market was predicted to be worth over US$200 billion (£125,40bn) in 2011 – with SMS representing $127 billion (£79,63bn) of this. Reports forecast that the mobile messaging industry will grow to $334.7 billion (£209,88bn) by 2015.

8. It is expected that in 2015 there will be 1.6 trillion users of mobile instant messaging (IM).

9. 45% of mobile users in UK, France and Germany noticed mobile adverts in 2010, while 29% responded to them. Out of this group, 47% of Brits made a purchase.

10. 40% of people in the UK admitted to being more likely to respond to opt-in SMS, which is the most effective form of mobile ads in Britain. 21% said the same in France and 27% of Germans confessed to preferring mobile Web ads instead.

From 30 April, the cost that Brits will pay for stamps will increase by 39%. The cost of an individual stamp will rise from 46p to 60p for first-class stamps and from 36p to 50 for second-class stamps.

This announcement has been made public by the state-owned postal service just after the communications watchdog Ofcom allowed it to establish its own prices.

“This is not great news for consumers. I doubt anyone is going to think about the challenges facing Royal Mail when they are paying 60p for a first-class stamp. Unfortunately, the economics of Royal Mail meant that something had to give to maintain the Universal Service Obligation,” stated Robert Hammond from Consumer Focus.

Since the arrival of new technologies such as the internet and text messages, traditional mail has lost many users. This new increase is predicted to do nothing but convince many of those who send letters in the post that there are quicker and cheaper ways of communication available.

This is one of the reasons why a number of businesses are choosing to send sms messages, to reach their customers and staff quickly, efficiently and at low cost.

U-Clock is a innovative North-West start-up company. They’ve created a unique clocking on system, designed to effectively manage employees.

The problem? For many employers managing remote employees can prove stressful, time consuming and costly. The U-Clock solution helps to remove these issues and allows busineses to monitor their workforce from remote locations.

The device has a unique site code and an 8 digit LCD display that changes every 30 seconds. When an employee arrives at or leaves a site, they send a text message to U-Clock containing the device’s site code and 8 digit number on display at that time. U-Clock identifies the user and clocks them in or out accordingly.

Take a look at our U-Clock case study to find out more…

We’re always really intrigued about the creative ways SMS is deployed to improve business communication.  If you’ve got a story to tell then we’d love to hear from you, please email hannah.giles@esendex.com

The most disappointing announcement for me was that Nottingham has missed out on it’s bid for the Super Connected Cities fund. It’s a real shame for the city. There was an additional, smaller, fund announced so hopefully the bid team can dust themselves off and we can go again.

The day before the budget there were various discussions about discounted lending for small businesses (those with less than £50m turnover). This is an amendment to the existing Enterprise Finance Guarantee Scheme where the government underwrites this lending, protecting the banks.

What hasn’t changed are the rules around lending. So it will only be beneficial if the problem is the cost of credit rather than access to credit for small companies. Unfortunately what I am seeing is a problem with the latter rather than the former. I would have liked to have seen more focus on making finance and mentorship available to first time entrepreneurs.

I believe that the Chancellor has taken a fairly big gamble with taxation. He’s reducing the taxes of the wealthiest in our society, both personal and corporate, with the hypothesis that this will stimulate investment and spending. It will be very hard to judge whether this has had a directly attributable effect whatever the outcome.

Esendex and its team members are probably broadly better off as a result of this budget. Whether the country is, remains to be seen.

This leaves us with an important responsibility. We must continuing growing, exporting and investing so that we can further contribute to our local economy and community.

If you’re visiting Internet World, you’ll find us located in the mobile village on Stand M3 at Earls Court in London. Our friendly SMS experts will be ready to answer all of your questions and will be talking about how you can benefit from SMS to transform the way your business communicates.

Internet World is also a great place to find the best providers of ecommerce platforms, content management systems, social media, cloud and hosting solutions and all things digital marketing.

If you’ve not already registered, it’s FREE to do so online. Last year the event attracted over 11,000 visitors and this year is set to be even bigger. As the ‘must go to’ event for businesses, we hope to see you there.

A new study published by Acision, the mobile communications company, has revealed the role that SMS messages play in everyday life for UK consumers.

After surveying 1,000 mobile users in the UK, 63% of which were smartphone users, research proved that SMS is still indispensable.

Results from the survey found that up to 95% of the participants stated that they actively use SMS. Even more interestingly, 93% of Brits who own a smartphone admit to regularly communicating via SMS, despite having Instant Messaging (IM) services on their handset.

Further data showed that 51% of Smartphone users said they would be “lost without” an SMS facility.

“Reports that suggest that SMS is on its deathbed, it seems, have been greatly exaggerated. In fact, it appears that smartphone and feature phone owners alike are united by their affection for text messaging,” commented Jorgen Nilsson, Chief Executive at Acision.

Converging platforms

Interestingly, research reveals that far from being in competition, SMS and IM services are actually complementing each other.

Nilsson stressed that what is particularly interesting is that SMS seems to excel on devices that have been more commonly associated with IM services.

“After looking at these results it is clear that while IM is growing in popularity, it still has a long way to go to catch up with the reach, reliability and ubiquitous nature of SMS. Analysts are predicting that Mobile IM will exceed 1.3 billion users by 2016, compared to over 5 billion users with access to SMS today,” concluded Nilsson.

While IM is useful to communicate with people in an everyday environment such as family or friends, SMS is the best tool when looking for a more formal way of communication. This is why business SMS is a great service that provides fast and effective communication by keeping a respectful distance from the user at the same time.

The three-year deal will see us sending millions of text messages to Specsavers customers with details of their appointments.

Geoff Love, Chief Commercial Officer for Esendex, said: “We are delighted that such a large and respected company has chosen Esendex to manage a vital part of its operations.

“Specsavers is famous for the quality of its customer care. We went through an understandably rigorous selection process before being awarded the contract and so to be chosen as their SMS partner reaffirms our position as market leaders.”

He said the deal meant Esendex was entering into a partnership with Specsavers and the two companies would be working closely to see how texting technology could help Specsavers to provide even better customer service and to further grow its business.

“Appointment reminders are the starting point”, said Love, “but texting can also be used in marketing to generate appointments in the first place and to follow them up afterwards.

Specsavers is the largest optical retailer in the UK and Ireland. It handles more than seven million appointments a year.

It has been voted the most trusted brand in the UK for the last ten years by Readers Digest.

Sarah Koulloutas, Head of Direct Marketing for Specsavers said: “Customer service is extremely important to us and something that we’re always looking to improve.

“We are confident that working with Esendex will help us to offer an even better service.”