Insider Intelligence spoke with Liz Ritzcovan, chief revenue officer of Hustle, which was one of the first to enable brands to reach consumers over text message. Ritzcovan shares how the company is innovating text marketing, including adding short-form video content. 

II: Why is text message marketing important for brands? 

Ritzcovan: Text message marketing is incredibly fast and efficient. People have a tremendous amount of unread emails, but a lot of folks have zero unread [text] messages because they're responding quickly to any incoming messages. It is an easy measurable marketing strategy given that you can see how quickly people respond. 

Most importantly, texting continues to keep the human element at the center. You need to have a human component so the consumer can respond—but it needs to be as personalized as possible. 

II: How are you bringing in short-form video content into text message marketing?

Ritzcovan: We are going from a point solution of SMS to a broader platform of solutions with video being one component. Video increases organic search traffic on a website by 157%, and we know that adding video to your emails can increase click rates by 300%. 

If you have the ability to reach consumers in video format in an MMS form, this creates a holistic end-to-end human experience and creates much more impact. Conversational video acts as a collection of content creation and distribution tools designed to differentiate us from our competitors in the ecosystem and in the text message communication space.

II: How has text message marketing changed? 

Ritzcovan: The biggest changes have happened as a result of most people having a device, which wasn't always the case. Secondly, and the biggest piece, is security and compliance. Carriers need to do their work making it a safe environment, and then we need to comply with the regulations. The most important thing is that the strategies need to resonate with the consumer who is going to want to receive the text. 

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