While double opt-in is not a requirement of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), the level of confirmation a double opt-in requires, makes it the only practical way of meeting the requirements of the law.

What is a Double Opt-in?

In SMS marketing, double opt-in is when a brand requires that a consumer reply “YES” via text message to confirm they want to be included in a recurring text messaging program. This request from the brand to opt-in can either be in response to a consumer text messaging an SMS keyword to a short code, or entering their mobile phone number into a web form.

Single vs Double Opt-In

Interested in learning the difference between a single opt-in, and a double opt-in? Check out the video to see how both SMS marketing campaigns work.

Is Double Opt-In Required?

Even though double opt-in is not strictly a requirement of the TCPA, the burden of proof to establish that a consumer provided consent be a part of a brand’s recurring messaging program lies with the brand. This means that it’s the brand’s responsibility to prove that by text messaging a short code, or entering a mobile phone number into a website form, the consumer was aware that they were consenting to be a part of the brand’s recurring text messaging program.

In a perfect world, the act of a consumer text messaging a short code, or entering a mobile phone number into a website form would be good enough. Unfortunately, TCPA plaintiffs can claim that they were not aware that they were opting-in to a recurring text message program when they text messaged a short code, or entered a mobile phone number into a website form. TCPA plaintiffs can make this claim even if the brand thought they were clearly and conspicuously disclosing this information before consumers took either of those actions.

A double opt-in creates a digital text messaging trail of a consumer’s consent to opt-in to receive a brand’s recurring text messages, ensuring that the brand can prove the consumer knowingly opted-in, if they ever needed to.

Double Opt-In Example

Here is an example of a double opt-in message exchange that would commonly be used by a brand to opt-in a consumer.

If a consumer opts in after receiving the above message, it would be nearly impossible for them to later claim that they were not aware they were opting into a recurring text messaging program by replying “YES” to that text message.

If there were ever a dispute regarding whether or not a consumer gave their consent, it would be easy for the brand to prove that the consumer did, in fact, give their consent.

Another reason that we recommend a double opt-in for SMS marketing is to bind consumers to an arbitration clause. If you’re interested in learning more about arbitration clauses for SMS marketing, we suggest you check out this blog post by Adam Bowser from Arent Fox. Adam’s practice focuses on complex TCPA litigation, including class action trials and appeals. He’s a proponent of using arbitration clauses in SMS marketing.

Do you have questions about using a double opt-in for SMS marketing? If so, leave a comment below and we’ll do our best to answer them.

Double Opt-In Variations

Did you know there’s more than just one way to setup a double opt-in for your SMS marketing campaign? Check out the different ways below that you can use setup double opt-ins for your own SMS marketing campaign.

Double Opt-In Best Practices

The CTIA and the wireless carrier require certain best practices when performing a double opt-in for an SMS marketing campaign. To learn more about these best practices, check out the video below.

When compiling the 60 absolute best SMS marketing statistics we could find, we didn’t cut any corners. Meaning we zero’d in on the why SMS marketing is a rapidly growing channel, as opposed to boring you with stats about how many people have a mobile phone, or how many texts get sent every day – it’s a lot, and we already knew that.

In this article, we focus on the text message marketing statistics that matter most to businesses and their marketing, sales, and customer support teams. Additionally, we cover why your customers want companies to text them, as well as how effective and efficient SMS marketing really is.

By the time you’re done reading through all these great SMS marekting statistics, you should either be asking yourself why your company isn’t already engaging with your audiences via SMS/MMS, or why you’re not sending more SMS text messages to customers.

We’ve broken down the 60 SMS marketing statistics by category:

What do consumers think of SMS marketing?

In general, it appears companies are afraid that they’ll be invading their customers’ privacy by sending them text messages. Which is why it’s not surprising that one of the most common questions concerning SMS marketing online is, “Is text marketing legal?”

The answer is: Yes, absolutely.

In almost all cases, people need to opt-in to receive texts from your business. And this is a good thing, because opting-in is a great signal that someone is a good prospect, quality lead, or is likely to convert with promotional offers or upsells.

A lot of online marketers laugh at the idea of SMS marketing services because they think it’s more regulated than email marketing. Fortunately, that’s not the case.

Other marketers shy away from text message marketing because it’s a new and therefore intimidating channel, or they feel it’s too intrusive to show up in their audiences’ text inbox. However, the data proves out that this idea is also not the case.

1. 75% of consumers are comfortable receiving SMS messages from brands as long as they opt-in to messaging. [1]

2. 64% of consumers think businesses should contact them via text messages more often. [2]

3. 75% of consumers want to receive texts with special offers. [3] 

If 3 out of 4 of all consumers would like to see special offers, discounts, and coupons delivered to their smartphones via SMS, you shouldn’t be worried about giving it a shot, right?

One recommended strategy for promotional text message marketing is to create a call-to-action that has a sense of urgency, such as a limited-time offer that needs to be redeemed by a specified date. 

Another strategy would be to encourage SMS/MMS recipients to share promotional offers with their family and friends in order to earn more points.

4. 75% of consumers are particularly frustrated when they can not respond to a text message from a business due to limitations with certain kinds of texting tools. [4]

5. 56% of people surveyed would rather message a business than call customer service. [5]

6. 67% of people would rather text with a business about appointments and scheduling than by email or phone. [4]

7. 59% of users want their communications built into the phone – not as a separate app, that they need to download. [6]

SMS is the preferred channel for consumers because opt-in is simple. Furthermore, they don’t have to download a brand’s app to receive notifications. Furthermore, SMS is more direct than a push notification from an app, and it won’t get lost in your email inbox.

8. 77% of consumers are likely to have a positive perception of a company that offers SMS. [7]

9. Up to 80% of consumers preferred to track their orders via text when products were shipped. [8]

The last couple of SMS marketing statistics we’ll include in this section highlights why SMS marketing in the USA is increasingly important. And it’s about the largest group of Americans and soon to be the highest spending group of American consumers – Millennials.

10. 83% of millennials open SMS messages within 90 seconds of receiving them. [9] 

11. 75% of millennials prefer SMS communications for deliveries, promotions, and surveys. [9]

Contrary to popular belief, most people aren’t discouraged by promotional offers sent via text. This is due to a few key factors. Most notably, SMS marketing is actually less intrusive than other marketing channels because users must provide you permission to send them texts from your business.

After reading through these first 11 SMS marketing statistics, you should feel much more comfortable about whether or not you’ll be upsetting any of your customers or prospects. 

Consumers are okay with companies sending them text messages, and even encourage their favorite brands to do so.  

Comparing SMS Text Messaging to Other Marketing Channels

So how does text message marketing compare to other marketing channels? And what makes SMS different than other marketing channels?

The value of text message marketing is that it’s the most preferred way for billions of people to interact with one another. People keep their phones by their side at all times and are always ready to use them.

And once again, the SMS marketing statistics we’ve gathered make that crystal clear.

12. Consumers are more likely to open text messages before any other form of mobile communication. [10]

13. In fact, consumers preferred channels for receiving brand updates are as follows: [4]

• SMS: 48%
• Email: 22% 
• App notifications: 20% 
• Direct mail: 8%

14. SMS messages have a 98% open rate compared to 20% of emails. [11]

15. The average response time for a legitimate email is about 90 minutes, compared to 90 seconds for a text message. [12]

16. Only 10% of SMS marketing messages are spam, compared to nearly 49.7% of emails. [13]

17. The response rate of SMS text message marketing is 45% vs email response rates at 6%. [8]

Additionally, engagement rates are also much higher when comparing SMS marketing and email marketing. 

18. 19% of links in text messages are clicked vs 2% of links in emails. [14]

19. SMS messages have an average click-through rate of 36%, while email click-through-rates are a dismal 3.4%. [13]

20. When it comes to sales, 90% of leads prefer to be texted, compared to being called on the phone. []

21. 55% of consumers prefer SMS for appointment reminders vs 35% of consumers who prefer email for those notifications. [16]

Unlike a website, SMS marketing is a persistent channel. Your website isn’t a persistent channel, because when a lead leaves your website without you capturing any of their information, they’re gone.

SMS marketing services provide a persistent marketing channel because you can re-engage with those people over and over again, more strategically.

Furthermore, you own this channel (an owned phone number), the same way you own marketing assets like your website. That makes SMS marketing a win-win because you both own the channel, and it’s a persistent channel.

How Effective is SMS Marketing?

Short answer: Pretty darn effective.

22. 98% of Sent Text Messages are Read. [17]

23. SMS messages have a 209% higher response rate than phone, email, or Facebook. [18]

24. It only takes 90 seconds on average for a person to respond to a text message. [19]

25. 90% of SMS messages are read within 3 minutes of being received. [14]

26. Furthermore, 95% of texts that are read and responded to happen within 3 minutes of delivery. [14]

When comparing different industries response rates, here are five of the largest industries and their results:

27. SMS response rates within the first 15 minutes of delivery. [13]

• Retail: 32%
• Betting & Trading: 33%
• Entertainment: 37%
• Travel & Transportation: 54%
• Finance & Banking: 57%

28. Sending business appointment reminders to customers through SMS reduced missed appointments by 26%. [8]

29. 91% of users who opt-in to receive texts from a brand see those messages as “somewhat useful” or “very useful”. [20]

The numbers don’t lie. Text message marketing, by far, has the best engagement rate of any marketing channel. Furthermore, mobile marketing is as fast as it gets for both delivery and response times.

SMS Marketing Statistics & SMS Sales Statistics

The following 16 SMS marketing statistics should convince marketing and sales teams to give text marketing serious consideration because they demonstrate that companies who are not adopting SMS as a channel, are likely losing out on substantial revenue.

30. 31% of consumers respond to SMS surveys, with an average response time of fewer than six minutes. [21]

31. SMS produces engagement rates six to eight times higher than retailers normally achieve via email marketing. [22]

32. 48% of Internet consumers said they would prefer to receive their loyalty-related messages via SMS. [10]

33. 50% of US consumers make direct purchases after they’re sent an SMS branded text, a discount coupon, or a QR code. [23]

34. Consumers who get SMS marketing messages are 40% more likely to convert than those who don’t. [24]

35. SMS produces engagement rates 6-8 times higher than retailers normally achieve via email marketing when used for redemption, data collection, and brand awareness. []

36. Coupons delivered via SMS have redemption rates 10 times higher than those of printed coupons. [13]

37. 64% of US smartphone owners said they would like to receive service-based messages from retail stores. [24]

38. 55% of US consumers said they would like to receive service-based messages from travel companies and delivery/restaurant businesses. [24]

Remember, they have to opt-in with an SMS keyword or some other way. So, consumers don’t need to receive your text messages if they don’t want to. Plus, they can always opt-out, which is why we recommend including an opt-out keyword, such as STOP.

39. 90% of customers say they have gained value from SMS loyalty programs. [11]

40. 83% of marketers promoting email subscription via SMS said it was “very effective/effective.” [20]

41. Using short, branded links in your mobile marketing campaigns can help improve conversions by up to 34% which is why we recommend using a URL shortener like Rebrandly. 

The reason why the click-through rate of branded links is much higher than that of short, generic links is that branded links are more easily trusted, as opposed to bit.ly/952769112, something like chatbots.org/sms-tools looks a lot nicer, tells you what to expect when you click on it, and it uses a brand name.

42. 96% of marketers rated mobile welcome SMS as “very effective/effective” or “somewhat effective.” [20]

43. 77% of consumers said they opted-in to a brand’s text messages to receive coupons or deals. [25]

44. 33% of consumers said they opted-in to a brand’s text messages to gain access to more meaningful content. [25]

45. 41% of consumers said they didn’t opt-in to a brand’s text messages because the texts didn’t provide meaningful content. [25]

SMS Statistics for Customer Support

Text is makes it easy to communicate with your customers because it’s instant, convenient, and universal. And the best live chat software allows you to proactively engage with customers and prospects in order to grow revenue, qualify leads, and offer real-time support across multiple channels – including SMS.

46. Consumers in the US prefer SMS over voice calls for customer service. [26]

47. More than 50% of customers prefer contacting support through text messaging compared to all other major communication channels. [17]

48. 70% of consumers want to use mobile messaging to troubleshoot issues. [27]

49. 68% of consumers would like to use mobile messaging to contact a company with billing questions or concerns. [27]

50. 71% of consumers — say using text messaging to communicate with a business was effective. [28]

51. 97% of companies found they communicated with consumers more efficiently after launching texting initiatives. [6]

52. 39% of businesses use some form of texting to communicate with their customers. [4]

Your customers want to use text for customer support issues. These numbers should have you thinking about the impact SMS could have on your business if you offered live chat support with SMS as an option, in addition to your other support channels.

Text Marketing Trends in 2020 and Beyond

Text message marketing is a massively underused marketing channel in general, and for that reason, it can be the perfect complement to your overall marketing strategy. And it’s growing, fast!

53. Compared to 2016, 23% more people will opt-in to receive SMS messages from companies in 2020. [18]

54. 7 million people will choose to receive business SMS messages in 2020. [18]

55. About 61% of marketers still don’t use SMS. If you start now you’ll be on the cutting edge. [28]

56. Despite SMS marketing statistics that prove SMS marketing is effective, 65% of brands still don’t have a formal strategy in place for bulk SMS messaging to take advantage of the amount of time we spend on our phones. [28]

57. Polls predict that by 2020, 85% of interactions between brands and customers will be managed without speaking. [29]

58. The use of SMS marketing grew 197% as a strategy in B2B efforts from 2015 to 2017. [20]

59. Despite the SMS boom, 61% of businesses have yet to embrace the platform. [30]

60. 73% of brands expect their SMS marketing budget to increase in 2020. [8]

Hopefully there’s no doubt left in your mind that SMS marketing is a highly viable and even necessary marketing channel. Don’t pass up the opportunity to grow your customer base with text message marketing in 2020.

Getting started with SMS text message marketing

Now that you know the most important SMS marketing statistics, it’s time to learn how to run great SMS marketing campaigns.

Watered-down, mobile-targeting tactics are costing you conversions, clients, and revenue. Meanwhile, SMS marketing is lurking in the background, waiting for you to capitalize on it.

So, take a look at these two articles of “SMS Marketing Examples” and “How To Send a Text Message Blast.”

Or, watch our video on “How To Do Text Message Marketing.”

SMS marketing is the fastest way to reach the more than 5 billion people that send and receive text messages around the world. And that’s because it’s instant, convenient, and universal.

When you’re ready to execute your own SMS marketing campaigns, opt-in programs, and text message blasts, use MobileMonkey’s suite of SMS marketing tools.

Have questions? MobileMonkey’s SMS FAQs help doc has answers.

Important next steps

See all the tools in MobileMonkey’s multi-channel chatbot platform by getting started with MobileMonkey for free.

References

1. MarketingProfs

2. Text Better

3. SmallBizDaily

4. ZipWhip 

5. Nielson

6. GSMA

7. eRetailers

8. Statista 2019

9. OpenMarket

10. eMarketer

11. SMS Comparison

12. CTIA

13. DSIM

14. SMS Global

15. GSMA

16. Flowroute

17. SmallBizDaily

18. Mobile Xco

19. GSMA

20. Salesforce

21. Business.com

22. Retail Dive

23. Mobivity

24. Vibes

25. Exact Target

26. Twilio

27. GSMA

28. MMA Global

29. CNBC

30. SMS.to

The post 60 SMS Marketing Statistics That Will Change Your Mind About Text Message Marketing appeared first on MobileMonkey.

The post Getting Started With SMS Marketing For eCommerce appeared first on Remarkety.

Online marketers love statistics about digital marketing. Us too. They allow us to review the growth in customer adoption of the latest digital platforms and technologies, make the business case for investment in marketing and allow us to benchmark our growth and performance against competitors.

This post is aimed at helping you if you’re looking to compile your own stats for your sector or your country. Here we share our experience of 10 of the best, most reliable free and paid sources. Everyone has their favourites, but I thought it would be useful to share the ones that I go back to most often each week as I research the updates for Smart Insights members and readers of my books.

We have been keeping this post updated for 5+ years now since the best sources change. I’ve also tried to make the best international marketing sources for different regions and countries clear. If you’re looking for specific digital marketing growth stats to include in your blogs, assignments or presentations, see our 100 must-see digital marketing stats.

To help readers of our blog keep ‘up-to-speed’ with the most significant, best sources of marketing stats we have daily ‘Chart of the Week” posts. From reviewing thousands of stats sources over the years, we’ve found that there are a very small number of quality online marketing statistics sites and sources which are updated at least annually and have a representative sample size from different countries.

Top 10 sites for digital marketing statistics

These sites cover global stats including UK, Europe, US, Asia Pacific and Latin America. Thanks for adding the other suggestions to the comments – well worth checking out for anyone searching for statistics sources who passes this way.

1 Global and country Internet usage breakdown – International Telecomms Union

ITU is THE global and by country source with the biggest sample size for the big picture of digital device usage and trends by continent and use of fixed and mobile broadband access by country per 100 people. It’s the best source for data in all countries, although this is only available for the top-level measures. This is their latest release from the start of 2019 up to the end of 2018 showing the growth opportunity for Internet access and higher-speed smartphone use across the world.

2 Global use of social media sites and devices – Global WebIndex

Global Web Index is a paid service giving insights on consumer use of social network sites globally and different countries from their own panel of 18 million (which they claim to be the largest worldwide), but they regularly feature very specific social media stats on their blog. They stopped releasing reports on Slideshare to encourage purchase of their subscription product, but they often make them available by the We Are Social / Data reportal Slideshare reports – if you’re not aware of these, they are well worth checking out.

This research shows their latest data on social network popularity.

3  For benchmarking sites within a sector for sources – Similar Web

SimilarWeb is a freemium tool for benchmarking the number of visits to sites and mobile app usage. It shows traffic sources for individual sites (good for student projects)  with categories and keywords in the paid Pro version.

4 Consumer media use in individual countries – comScore

For detailed insights of consumer Internet usage and ad spend by country, The comScore press releases summarising their panel data are one of the best sources of the latest stats releases. Their blog can also be helpful – I have included within the custom search engine. A similar service based on panel data is Nielsen Insights.

See our Mobile marketing stats research compilation for the latest data on smartphone adoption growth.

5 European Union Digital Marketing Statistics

The EU statistics site Eurostat is the best source for overall European use of digital technology and in individual countries. The Information Society page is the best starting point.

6 Best UK source for consumer Internet usage statistics – OfCom

The Office of Communication Communications Market Report Statistics has in-depth reports on adoption of digital media including telecommunications and the Internet (including broadband adoption), digital television and wireless services in the UK. They also have comparisons to other major developed countries in their international benchmark report.

7 UK National Statistics and consumer trends

The UK Government Office of National Statistics (ONS) site is an alternative source – there is no themed area on Internet use any longer, so search on ‘Internet access’ or ‘Ecommerce’

8 US digital marketing statistics – Marketing Charts and Pew Internet

Marketing Charts is a long-standing aggregator of information about consumer and business adoption of technologies and approaches. Care has to be taken of sample sizes and it tends to focus on US data – it’s rare for it to include any of the sources above.

They often feature Pew Internet Statistics which are one of the best sources for the latest statistics on how Americans use digital media and technology.

9 eMarketer

Emarketer.com is another well-established compilation of digital statistics for online marketers – more US-oriented. It includes a paid option, but many free statistics are published on their blog.

10 Ad Spend and media investment – IAB Research

Research reports on online advertising effectiveness from the UK IAB , US IAB and European IAB (AdEx) and IAB Europe (AdEx).

Recommended Smart Insights marketing statistics compilations

Using these research sources and others we have these compilations of benchmarks to compare the effectiveness of other channels which we will keep updated through 2017:

Alternative digital marketing statistics sources

We will keep this list updated as sources change. Here are some that were formerly useful, but where less digital marketing research tends to be shared today:

Statista is a newer statistical aggregator source that has become popular over the past few years which it’s worth bookmarking. Their charts on Internet and social media usage are often derived from sources here like Global Web Index. Here is their summary of digital marketing growth statistics – they tend to base their nicely produced charts on the sources we’ve identified here – which is good, but they can be dated, so take care you find the latest!

SMS, or text message, marketing is something that seems to really divide opinions. Some hate it, some love it, but the undeniable truth is that most online stores should be using it by now.

SMS never has been, never should be, and probably never will be, a replacement for email marketing, but the question isn’t really a ‘one or the other’ situation. Most ecommerce businesses should leverage an SMS strategy that’s separate from their other channels, but still works as a part of the big picture. There are a lot of ways to crack that nut.

Luckily, we go over all the basics right here!
Prefer to talk to us directly? Let’s chat!

First things first, which SMS platforms are out there? Do they work with ecommerce platforms like Shopify?

Short answer: a lot, and most of them do.

Longer answer, it really depends what your preference and budget is. There are a lot of highly rated Shopify apps like SMSBump and Message Mate. They’re generally pretty easy to set up and navigate, especially if you pay attention to the app documentation.

While it’s still a new feature, we think Klaviyo is a bit of a no-brainer, simply because it already does powerful email marketing with Shopify. To me, it makes sense to take advantage of one platform for multiple purposes as long as the functionality is there, and in the case of Klaviyo it is.

So how do I even build a text list?

There’s a couple ways to do this the RIGHT way. If you have a large, existing database of customers, leverage cross channel promotion. Offer a free product, shipping discount, coupon, download, or something else to get users who already follow you to opt in to SMS.

You can also use programs like Privy (among many others) to create pop ups for mobile users that are similar to your email collection pop ups, but for SMS instead. If you don’t want to completely cannibalize your email list building, you can set it to show for portions of your audience too. This is important because taking this approach WILL ding your email signups while you do it.

Note: We never recommend paying for lists of any kind, SMS, email, or otherwise. Build an audience that wants to hear from you instead.

So how do I use it?

There’s not one right answer, just like there’s no one-size-fits-all marketing strategy either. There are a few tactics that I’ve found to be particularly helpful though.

Use it for announcements, but be strategic.

If you have a new product launch or sale, it’s tempting to launch ads, emails, texts, and more all at once. Try not to. Stagger the announcement so that people don’t feel overburdened, and you have the opportunity to cast a wider net.

Another benefit of using something like Klaviyo is that you can segment people who are in your text audience but NOT your email list, and text only them when your email goes out (this way, people get an announcement once, but not twice on different channels).

Time Sensitive Info

There are a lot of use cases for this. Maybe you’ve started a flash sale. Maybe you’ve got a Black Friday weekend sale that has stages throughout the day or week. Whatever the case may be, SMS is more of an immediate notification than waiting for people to catch your ads or check their email. This is often a very powerful way to leverage SMS.

Be Conversational

If you have time on your hands, or a team that can back you up, try real time messaging! People are much more used to texting back and forth than emailing, or sometimes even chatting. If you can find ways to engage customers, do it! Stats show that it often makes their conversion potential skyrocket.

This article just scratches the surface of ecommerce SMS marketing, but dip your feet in and see how it goes. Share your thoughts with us in the comments or join the Shipshape Collective on Facebook to talk to us and other like minded business owners about this and much more!

*

Aeolidia is the resource for creative businesses looking to grow and increase sales. for more tips and info like this, and to get access to our free community.

“Apps are expected to generate $189 Billion US dollars in revenue by 2020.” — Statista

This is a clear-cut representation of the fact that mobile apps were, are and will always be the face of modernization and technology advancement. Mobile apps are an integral part of our lives — be it personal or professional. And, there is a lot that has happened in the year 2019 and a lot more that has been trending for the coming year 2020.

Take a glance at the below-proven statistics, don’t they self-pronounce the ever-increasing popularity of mobile application development?

As we approach the new year, it is exciting to see how mobile app development will influence businesses belonging to the different categories, sizes, and sectors. Key trends have suggested that mobile applications have a great future and their integration with the latest technological trends is the highlight.

Major Mobile App Development Trends For 2020

Chatbots Will Show Prominence

The presence of chatbots has just shown its emergence. This year saw chatbots getting familiar with organizations and the coming year shall see much more of chatbots embedded in apps. Since it is fast and accurate, chatbots are the ideal way to have an enhanced UI / UX with the customer, while implementing mobile apps.

Currently, there are about 2.2 million apps in the Google Play Store and about 2 million in the Apple app store. But very few of them have embedded chatbots in their apps. The year 2020 shall surely see an upsurge in this ratio. Organizations have now realized the worth of chatbots in mobile apps and hence areas like retail shopping, food hubs, taxi services, etc. will implement more bots. Clients will see their queries getting solved faster, without human customer support and intervention. The two tech giants in this arena — Google Assistant and Apple’s Siri will portray newer features to make their user’s life easier and smarter.

Enhanced Integration Of Wearable Apps

The wearable is undoubted, a part and parcel of our daily lives — be it smartwatches, trackers, fitness bands and smart rings. The time to come shall witness novel additions to the technology that will encourage an increasing number of users to avail of the benefits of wearables.

Not only users, developers, and designers will also leverage this technology to offer a variety of designs and features that have not yet been seen. The digital experience that will be offered will be a step ahead of what is available today. Till now, there have been many apps that do not support the wearable technology. Developers will think of ways and means to offer seamless integration between mobile apps and wearable devices, along with lesser dependency on the smartphone.

IoT Driven Mobile Apps Will Be In Vogue

IoT is the face of future technologies and developers are keenly interested in working towards the integration of IoT with mobile apps. It’s predicted that IoT will be a major requirement in mobile apps. Big names like Google and Amazon have leveraged the complete potential of this technology and Google’s initiative to acquire Fitbit is yet another example of the same.

Industries like supply chain, retail, healthcare, etc. are coming to face the integration with real-life devices rather than depending upon sci-fi. Users will be able to control non-IT devices through remotes or applications. IoT enabled mobile apps are the trend for the coming year and there is no looking back.

AR And VR Will See An Upsurge In Mobile App Development

AR and VR were two hi-tech arenas which were a delight for gaming apps but no longer! These two big technologies are spreading their wings to offer much more and the coming year shall be a witness to that. Apple and Google have already started unleashing the potential of AR and VR into innovative directions that shall soon show up. Google is set to come up with a new AR feature for Google maps that will offer users real-time directions from their camera phones.

Integrating AR and VR into mobile apps shall soon pick up the pace and is one of the hottest trends for the year to come. Areas like marketing, advertising, healthcare, manufacturing shall be positively affected by the confluence of AR, VR and mobile apps.

Mobile Wallets Will Drive Purchasing In 2020

Mobile wallets have already started becoming a preferred choice of payment for users today. Users are swiftly moving towards smartwatches and hence mobile wallets like Apple Pay, Google Wallet shall be on an upsurge in the year 2020.

Users shall depend heavily on mobile wallets for securing their payments in a flexible and suitable manner. M-commerce is the trend today and tomorrow — a step ahead of e-commerce. Even Blockchain technology is about to enter the mobile payments arena and offer higher security mobile apps. Organizations today look for enhanced techniques to ensure that money transactions and payments are faster, more secure and convenient. And that is what the year 2020 shall offer with mobile wallets getting smarter.

Cybersecurity has yet not been given its due importance and that is the reason many incidents happened with big giants that shouldn’t have. Businesses are now quite cautious about embedding security features right from the beginning into mobile apps, to ensure complete privacy, security and data protection.

Almost all tech giants, including Google and Apple, have increased their focus towards the security quotient and are coming up with newer advancements that shall ensure upright security. The security-first approach is going to take prominence in the year 2020.

Beacons With Mobile Apps Will Go Far And Wide

Beacons have always been the favorite technology, especially for the retail segment. Beacon based apps, notifications, alerts, promotions have been giving a huge rise to business performances. With technology advancing, beacon-enabled airports, automated personal beacons, mobile payment beacons will be around the corner, in the coming year.

The sharing of information will become smoother and safer. Industries like hotels, healthcare, museums, etc. will adapt beacons for their progress. Location-based technology, proximity marketing, personalized virtual tours, AI-enabled chips, automated machine learning, beacon treasure hunting will gain prominence in the year 2020. Merging with IoT will bring a larger impact for beacons.

Instant Apps Will be Welcomed In 2020

Instant apps or native mobile apps have been popular because of its user-friendly, convenient, website like functionalities and small size architecture. Because they can be accessed instantly without any downloads, native apps have bee rising in popularity. Not only end-users, but these apps have also been quite raging amongst developers because they have a better conversion ratio than regular mobile apps.

With users going in for an enhanced UX and shorter waiting time, the year 2020 will surely see more of instant apps.

Demand For On-demand Apps Will Increase

Uber, Airbnb, Booking.com, Peapod, Zomato, Swiggy, Instacart, Rinse, Postmates — these are all on-demand platforms. On-demand apps are the face of the future. You can now ask for what you want through these on-demand apps, and it will be fulfilled. On-demand apps are experiencing exponential growth in acceptance and the year to come shall see more.

On-demand apps offer their clients ease, happiness, and flexibility. For e.g., Uber uses on-demand, location-based apps to offer on-demand taxi services in a secure and cost-effective way and Airbnb offers on-demand hospitality services across the globe. The power of on-demand apps is gaining momentum for a better tomorrow.

Cloud Computing Integration Will Pick Up Pace

Cloud is no longer a futuristic move. It is already popular and will increase its spread in 2020. Cloud-based services are playing a significant role in developing mobile apps — be it iOS, Android or any other.

Today’s cloud computing integration services are assisting mobile apps to store a huge amount of data effectively and undergo complicated tasks with utmost security and cost-effectiveness. There would be an increased collaboration, productivity, storage capacity, user holding, restructuring of operations once cloud computing plays a role in mobile app development. And that is what the coming year will showcase!

Cloud platforms like Dropbox, AWS, etc. have empowered apps to run directly on the cloud. The year to come shall see quantum computing, hybrid cloud solutions, and the development of cloud services, as this technology rules over the mobile world.

Enterprise Mobile Management (EMM) And Application Performance Management (APM) Will Gain Popularity

In any enterprise mobile app development procedure, there are two big names i.e. enterprise mobile management and application performance management. EMM has empowered businesses to enable mobile devices with the utmost security. The coming year shall witness newer trends in EMM that shall ensure complex level app security and maintenance of mobile devices.

APM, as mobile metrics, is all set to boost the complete performance of the apps. It is increasingly being used by QA teams, to test the app performance process.

Impact Of 5G Technology Will Be Powerful

5G technology is one of the hottest trends for 2020, in the mobile app development domain. Majorly, owing to the high speed that is almost 100 times faster than the 4G network, the 5G network will witness a boom in business performance. There will be multiple shifts from 4G services to 5G wireless networks, globally.

5G, in the year 2020, will also cater to increased data security, speed, 3D gaming, AR and more. 5G capable chips will be launched by huge organizations. App developers will also upgrade their design and development skills to match up to expectations set by the 5G network.

AI Will Make Mobile Apps Smarter And Effective

AI with mobile apps isn’t new now; it has brought in lot of savings in time, efforts and costs for mobile app developers. AI is coming up with newer trends that will empower mobile apps to perform better and bring in increased user satisfaction.

AI is getting integrated into the company’s native apps. The year 2020 shall witness novel trends like AI-enabled chips, automated machine learning, AI automated DevOps, interoperability among neural networks. AI shall be leveraged by virtual personal assistants, IoT, cybersecurity and intelligent apps.

We Observe Mobile App Development Trend Higher And Higher

Observing all these mobile app development trends, it seems the mobile industry is going to soar new highs in the year 2020. There will be newer tech developments, newer challenges and a lot to wait for. Understanding these trends and analyzing them, with the help of an ideal IT solution and service provider, would surely help, prior to taking a big plunge into implementation.

After all, mobile apps are set to bring the world closer and bind us together. It is way more than just building apps, it is building a successful business!

Note: This post was previously published on our blog: here

Mobile App Development Trends 2020 was originally published in on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

At Omnisend, we see that SMS is gaining momentum: more and more ecommerce sites are looking for the best scenarios to integrate this short text messages channel into their communication flows.

If you are reading this article, you probably see the same unexplored SMS marketing opportunities as we do. So let’s see which SMS marketing software could meet your current expectations for this new channel.

1. Omnisend

Omnisend is an omnichannel marketing platform with multiple channels onboard and robust segmentation features. The most significant difference from other players on this list is the omnichannel customer experience that you can provide throughout this tool.

With Omnisend, you can send promotional SMS campaigns as well as automated workflows with integrated different channels. Omnisend allows you to mix channels and send your messages through customers’ preferred media. In this case, you can boost your overall campaign engagement as well as save on spending per message.

Omnisend works on Shopify, Shopify Plus, Bigcommerce, Woocommerce, Magento and other ecommerce platforms.

Feature list:

Pricing:

One of the paid plans (starting from $16) + $0.015/SMS in the U.S. For more details, please follow the link.

2. SMS Bump

SMS Bump software is built for SMS marketing. It works as a separate marketing channel. This tool is a great alternative to Omnisend if you’re not looking for an omnichannel approach and need only text messages.

This tool is a comprehensive solution that offers many useful features. First of all, with SMS Bump you can send both – SMS and MMS. Bulk SMSes as well as automated messages are available. Discount codes, A/B testing, etc.

SMS Bump works fine with Shopify, Shopify Plus, Bigcommerce, Woocommerce, and other ecommerce platforms.

Feature List:

Pricing:

A starting plan to test it out is free. Paid plans start at $19.9 + $0.0149/SMS in the U.S.

3. Postscript SMS & MMS Marketing

Postscript is a sophisticated but easy-to-use platform for SMS marketing. Its trump card is segmentation. You can easily segment your customers according to their purchases on the Shopify and Shopify Plus platform.

Postscript supports SMS and MMS. Live chat functionality allows you to provide customer support or close sales via text messages.

Like all tools on this list, Postscript follows US TCPA regulation, so you will find all the necessary legal statements and agreements already there.

However, it seems that the Postscript tool is built only for the Shopify ecosystem. Businesses built on other platforms should look for different solutions.

Features:

Pricing:

The pricing plan starts at $50. For this price, you get 1500 credits which make your SMS cost you about $0.033

4. EZ Texting

EZ Texting is another alternative to SMS Bump and Postscript. EZ Texting is the most comprehensive SMS platform on this list. It has a unique offer which includes a suite of SMS marketing tools with polls, surveys, and contests available.

Segmentation, automation, reporting – all these necessary features are advanced on the EZ Texting platform. However, you still will need to import customer data if you want to approach them via different channels.

Features:

Pricing:

You can start using EZ Texting for free to test it out. Pricing plans start at $49/mo for 1000 SMS credits ($0.049/SMS)

5. Tatango

Tatango is the last but on least on this list. This platform is well-established, has robust functionality and mostly used by enterprise companies.

It covers SMS, MMS, RCS marketing campaigns, detailed reporting, segmentation, some fancy features such as text-to-win, voting, etc. Even though this solution is easy to use, customer support is responsive and helps if you need them.

Surprisingly, Tatango doesn’t support two-way messaging.

Features:

Pricing:

Their Enterprise software starts at $1,000/mo. ($0.01/SMS; $0.02/MMS)

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All these tools have a bold presence and positive social proof. So none of them would probably disappoint you.

However, your decision should be made concerning your business scope, goals, and priorities.

If you seek a tool for standalone SMS marketing, pick SMS Bump, as it seems to have the most reasonable pricing. But if your company has already reached a sustainable stage and you are looking for more advanced marketing means, I would advise you to consider omnichannel marketing with Omnisend.

Get a personal 1-on-1 demo and learn about SMS in omnichannel today!