Let’s take a moment to discuss text messaging today. When consumers think of text messaging, they envision emoticons, “LOL” phases and essentially what keeps their fingers exhausted on a daily basis. For businesses, however, the world of text messaging expands to encompass so much more than ever thought possible – most of which has to do with text message marketing.

So what is text message marketing exactly? In short, it’s the practice of taking a company’s marketing message and translating it into a form of communication that is used in unfathomable amounts by the public everyday – text messaging.

In fact, the text message turned 20-years-old in December of 2012, and CNN reported some impressive statistics to back up the triumph of the text:

• 6 billion texts are sent everyday in the U.S. alone
• 2.2 trillion are sent per year
• Globally, 8.6 trillion text messages are sent each year
• In the U.S., 75 percent of teens text and send an average of 60 texts per day

Now back to the marketing aspect. Considering all of the above, it seems pretty understandable that while outbound marketing is still effective for specific industries, the impact it can have in a dynamic market is dwindling. As a result, inbound marketing is becoming the favored platform. Plus, it’s proving to be less costly and will provide for a healthy, two-way interaction for generating customer leads and increasing sales.

In a related blog from industry expert TSG Global that also boasts an infographic, the company explores how marketers are using the inbound approach to engage customers in conversation by posting informative content. Outbound marketing, by contrast, is focused on finding consumers through the use of advertising. In this medium, the purpose is not to educate the consumer.

Just how much of a change is going on in the market?

 Consider that 200 million Americans are currently on the “Do Not Call” list. This eliminates a huge segment of the broad market, as these individuals have told companies not to contact them with offers or even information. Another 91 percent of e-mail users have told companies to stop sending them enewsletters, and another 86 percent of people skip ads on TV.

The only market that seems to have capitalized on the captive audience is the online television network. If I want to catch an episode of my favorite show that I missed last week, I can easily do so online. I cannot, however, skip the forced 60 second commercial at the beginning of the episode that is strategically placed several times throughout.

Over the past two years, the average amount of money spent on social media and blogs has doubled. At the same time, 66 percent of marketers believe their blog is critical or important to the success of their business. Meanwhile, another 57 percent of companies reveal that they acquired new customers through LinkedIn accounts and company blogs. Additionally, Facebook (News - Alert) plays a role for 48 percent and Twitter for 42 percent.

The current state of the market presents a significant opportunity for the organization seeking to launch text messaging. This form of marketing not only enables companies to push out relevant information to a key audience segment, but it also provides marketers with an important benefit – the ability to engage directly with its core audience (see stats above).

In a recent TMCnet post, TSG Global’s David Vaughan shared insight into how to structure the effective text messaging campaign to produce the optimal desired results.

Vaughan’s Advice

His first piece of advice – be careful in selecting what to include in the text message. Second, make ads or coupons a small percentage of the texts you send out – preferably, only 10-20 percent. And of course, a content strategy is a must.

There are a number of benefits a company can realize from a proven text messaging campaign, but it should launch with a clear strategy to manage the interactions and measure overall success.

To read CNN’s report in full, get all of the facts by clicking here.