If the extent of your ideas about how to operate an SMS bulk marketing campaign is having the ability to send real-time messages to your customers about upcoming sales and events, you’re only scratching the surface. SMS marketing goes far beyond simple one-way communication and can even encompass back and forth dialogue—albeit not quite the kind you might expect from a traditional email or social media marketing campaign.

Short-Code Numbers and their Uses
You’re probably familiar with short-code numbers even if you’ve never used them before yourself. For example, a customer can send a text message from their phone to a specific five-digit number to receive or send information, such as receiving a text telling them their current cell phone bill balance or to vote for their favorite contestant on American Idol. You can choose to implement short-code numbers into your SMS marketing campaign for a variety of reasons:

• Subscribing to email or SMS bulk marketing campaigns;

• Unsubscribing from the same;

• To let established customers check their points balance on rewards programs;

• To receive special offers and coupons;

• To facilitate voting campaigns; and

• Anything else you can possibly dream up.

Therein lies the beauty about SMS bulk marketing—that something so simple and no-frills can be used for just about any purpose that you can think up. With that in mind, what does the future of SMS marketing hold? If things continue to develop as they have been, it’ll only be a short matter of time before the next big leap is revealed.