On the first day of a New York University class entitled, “Mobile Marketing for the Small to Medium-sized Business,” students are asked, “True or false, everyone has or will have a smartphone?” The majority of students answer ‘true.’

The question is followed up with, “By when?” The average answer usually ends up at “somewhere around 2015.” The truth is no one knows when or if this will become a fact. But the more important point is: we aren’t there yet!

Dumb phones (aka feature phones) - Get me user stats…stat!
The fact is the feature phone market in the U.S. alone is still massive, but who owns these devices? Finding out who owns dumb phones is extremely important since you need to answer the question, are they even worth marketing to? Now, since you most likely market to people, the answer to that question should be yes.

Dumb phone subscribers statistics in the U.S. are still huge
Nielsen’s February 2012 report states dumb phone users make up 49.7 percent of total U.S. mobile subscribers. Now, CTIA (News - Alert) stated the total mobile wireless subscriber number is 331 million, which equates to approximately 165 million subscribers, and we couldn't do without that number of people to engage.

Need some more statistics to help you interact better, or just want to know the demographics?
Well, the Pew (News - Alert) Internet & American Life Project from 2011 reported on the following ‘Other than Smartphone’ (this would be dumb phones more than likely) user statistics:

*Age: 18–24 (46 percent); 25–34 (35 percent); 35–44 (45 percent), 45–54 (58 percent); 55–64 (59 percent); 65-plus (45 percent)
*Income: $100,000 or less (44–57 percent), $100,000-<$150,000 (38 percent), $150,000-plus (25 percent)
*Race: White/Non-Hispanic (50 percent), African-American (45 percent), Hispanic (42 percent)
*Oh, and if your audience is global, it’s important to note that smartphone penetration worldwide is only 27 percent.

All Inclusive Mobile Marketing Strategy
If your mobile strategy is focused solely on what can be accomplished with smart phones, then you can see you are truly missing half the boat. That's like opening your brand new office with no furniture or getting the latest movie on DVD without owning a DVD player.

What can you do?

If you want to market to the widest audience of mobile subscribers with any one tactic, than text messaging is king. Don't take my word for it though, consider Portio Research stating, “Messaging still dominates (mobile operators’) non-voice revenues worldwide.”All phones today (except maybe one or two), whether smart or dumb, have the ability to text message. Wonder if people still use SMS? Well, 81 percent of today’s mobile phone users have sent or received messages in the last 30 days, according to Nielsen, so what do you think?

FlexTALK SMS is exactly a product that can help you achieve these staggering numbers, and with marketing success stats of 98 percent open rate (83 percent within the first three minutes) and up to 45 percent response rate, it's not DUMB but SMART to consider SMS messaging as a viable tactic to engage and connect with all mobile subscribers.


Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO West 2012, taking place Oct. 2-5, in Austin, TX. ITEXPO (News - Alert) offers an educational program to help corporate decision makers select the right IP-based voice, video, fax and unified communications solutions to improve their operations. It's also where service providers learn how to profitably roll out the services their subscribers are clamoring for – and where resellers can learn about new growth opportunities. For more information on registering for ITEXPO click here.

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