SMS marketing has long remained under the radar. But several tailwinds will make sending text messages to customers a common practice in 2021.

We spoke with Zak Normandin, founder and CEO of Iris Nova, about how his company has leveraged SMS to better serve its customer base.

Sixty-eight percent of US adults said that reminders of important appointments were highly valuable, compared with just 14% who cited discount alerts.

Marketers and service professionals are using SMS messages in many ways.

In this year’s “Key Digital Trends” report, we examine changes coming to the digital media and technology landscape in 2021—including legislation, privacy, entertainment, social media, and more—and why they matter to marketers.

While email may not be changing as rapidly as some other digital disciplines, it evolves nevertheless. Gone are the days when a best-in-class marketer could rely on batch-and-blast techniques, where 100% of a brand’s email distribution list received emails that were 100% identical. Opportunities abound particularly in the realms of personalization and testing.

Adults in the US will spend 23 additional minutes per day on their smartphones in 2020, making a mobile strategy even more important than before.

Pandemic-related stay-at-home mandates have accelerated OTT messaging app adoption in most parts of the world. In the US, however, alternative means of communicating, including Zoom and FaceTime, have hindered usage of OTT messaging services.

Our new forecast for global mobile messaging app users shows that the pandemic has accelerated adoption of OTT messaging services, though not in every country nor to the same degree for every app.

Of the many channels out there, SMS may not be the most exciting, but it is the most personal. And when marketers want to build on those one-on-one connections with consumers, their efforts must be exactly that.

The retail industry has faced major changes this year, both good and bad. Companies have had to adjust budgets, reimagine marketing efforts and adapt to new consumer behaviors. Uncommon Goods, an eco-conscious online and catalog retailer of unique gifts, is no stranger to this variety of operational shifts brought on by the pandemic.

Since stay-at-home orders were put in place, more adults in the US have significantly increased their alcohol purchases.

eMarketer is pleased to moderate a Tech-Talk Webinar featuring Acoustic’s Dave Haucke, vice president of product management, and Pinky Lees, worldwide mobile strategist. They will share multiple use cases to help marketers understand how to get started with SMS, and where this channel fits into your overall communications and marketing strategy.

eMarketer forecasting analyst Rini Mukhopadhyay tees up our usage figures for mobile messaging apps worldwide, which recently hit a tipping point against mobile phone social network users.

Traditional text messages may (finally) be getting an overhaul. In June, Google announced that it will allow Android users in the UK and France to opt in to Rich Communication Services (RCS), the new texting standard intended to replace the current SMS protocol. That's a step forward for RCS, which has been off to a slow start, but it's not likely to mean much for consumers or marketers yet.

With the number of US mobile messaging app users on the rise, these chat apps are an emerging marketing channel. This report explains what marketers need to know about using Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and the new texting standard RCS.

John Duffy, co-founder and CEO of 3Cinteractive, discusses the new texting standard set to replace SMS and what it means for marketers.