A few years ago just about everyone had a cell phone glued to their ear, today, it suddenly seems that everyone has given up on calling and instead they are busy entering information into tiny keypads with their fingers or some sort of stylus. What is happening of course is that everyone is using text messaging services.
What is now just called texting is really SMS, “short message service.” The service provided is a method of communicating where messages are sent and received between two cell phones, or in the case of mass text messaging services, between a sender and many simultaneous recipients. The “short” on SMS refers to the fact that only 160 characters can be sent per message, if the message contains more than 160 characters, the smart phone will automatically send it as multiple messages.
How does it work?
Your cell phone does not have to be engaged in conversation; it is always on, it sends and receives information constantly. You may not be talking or texting, but the phone is talking to the cell site that it is currently controlled by. The reason for this constant dialogue is so your cell phone knows where it is and what tower it should move to maintain a connection. The phone and the tower communicate by sending tiny packets of information back and forth to one another.
There is a control channel which is used as a pathway for both voice and text messaging services. When someone attempts to call your phone, it is sent a message by the tower that tells the phone to ring and it provides two voice channels for the conversation. When a text is sent, the message flows through the control channel, then to the appropriate cell site and the tower sends the message to your phone as a packet of data. When you send a text message, the system is reversed.
Advantages of text messaging services:
Text messaging is discreet, no one can overhear anything because there is no voice communication happening. Text messaging is ideal when you do not want your conversation to be listened in on or overheard. It is also more efficient than making long winded calls when all you want is a quick answer, and you do not have to be at your phone when the text arrives.
A SMS service is called “store-and-forward.” This means that you do not have to be in range of a cell site when the text is sent; it will be stored for as long as necessary until the recipient moves into range or activates his cell phone.
In addition to sending just one message to one person, text messaging services can be used to send one common message to may recipients. The recipients can be everyone in a particular cell at the moment or from a list of contacts. This service is referred to as broadcasting and is an effective marketing tool for contacting groups of people with a common interest.
Text messaging services give marketers a captive audience that generally results in an immediate response and a higher response rate than any other previous marketing method. Contact Text Sprout for help in designing a method to get directly to your customers, fast and inexpensive.
