Vibes Media announced today they’ve now sent over one billion SMS messages, or “interactions,” between brands and consumers.
The fast-growing startup said its billionth message was sent as part of a Pittsburgh Penguins mobile campaign surrounding the 2013 NCAA Men’s Division 1 Ice Hockey Frozen Four Championship, and represents a huge milestone for the company. Vibes also boasts that with more than 300 customers across a wide spectrum of industries including Best Buy, Subway, Bon Jovi, and FOX Broadcasting Company, Vibes now averages more than one million text messages per day sent between brands and consumers.
Vibes said in its press release that, according to the 2010 Response Rate Report conducted by the Direct Marketing Association, marketers using the mobile channel averaged text messaging click-through rates of 14.06% and conversion rates of 8.22%. By contrast, marketers using Internet display had click-through rates with a mean of 0.76% and a conversion rate of 4.43%. E-mail also fell short to text messaging with rates of 6.64% and 1.73%, respectively, while direct mail response rates topped off at 5.72%.
“Since the inception of the mobile marketing industry, we’ve helped this space evolve from a novelty to a must-have marketing program with the ability to drive significant ROI for brands,” said Jack Philbin, Vibes president and co-founder. “Mobile is the only channel that can create consistent, ongoing, and always-on lines of communication with audiences; reaching the one billion interaction milestone shows that text messaging campaigns, while perhaps not as sexy as shiny new applications, are the most effective means for connecting to consumers in a meaningful and timely way.”
