Covering everything from the right calls-to-actions to proper testing, segmentation, and even the downfalls of developing a “pointless app,” the infographic uses original, primary research with references to eConsultancy and the Information Commissioners Office out of the U.K.

The full infographic is embedded below.  Let us know what you think and whether you agree or disagree with these “seven deadly sins” in the comments section.

Source: Text Marketer Bulk SMS Services

Following the launch of the latest iteration of their SMS marketing platform, dubbed Tatango v3.1, the company launched both an affiliate program and a referral program.  For those unfamiliar with how affiliate programs work, it’s the ability to drive traffic to a certain company (in this case Tatango) and earn a commission on any sales your traffic generates.  For Tatango’s program, you earn a healthy 20% monthly commission for the life of every new customer you bring on.

In addition, the company has launched two new tools; the ability to create SMS autoresponders and SMS marketing flyers.  The SMS flyer tool allows anyone to quickly and easily create an advertisement for their SMS marketing campaigns that are both well-designed and, most importantly, comply with all SMS marketing best practices.  Tatango is offering the new tool free of charge, and it’s even available to non-Tatango users regardless of their SMS marketing provider.

The company’s new SMS autoresponder feature allows people to request information immediately to their mobile phones via text message.  Each SMS autoresponse you create allows you to use all 160 characters to include things like click-to-call phone numbers and even links to websites, social media profiles, videos, surveys, etc.  The company is offering the new feature with unlimited messaging credits for $49/mo.  To celebrate the launch, the company is even holding a text-to-win contest using its new SMS autoresponders for a chance to win one of 10 Clingo Universal Car Phone Mounts.

Today, that trend continues, as ViVOtech – the near field communication (NFC) software and systems company – raised the curtain on ViVOtouch, a mobile marketing software platform.

According to details provided in the announcement, the platorm in question “enables retailers to deliver personalized content, offers and loyalty programs to customers, while enabling interactive shopping experiences with NFC-enabled mobile devices – all in real-time.”

With ViVOtouch, merchants, mall operators, coupon issuers and service providers are able to instantly deliver customized content to shoppers’ mobile devices based on their profile, location and interests.

Consumers have the ability to “check in” with a simple tap or wave of their NFC device at the entrance of a store or mall, prompting a merchant’s current promotions, offers and rewards to be sent directly to their device.

ViVOtouch can also be triggered using QR code scan, SMS short code, cellular or Wi-Fi triangulation or website-initiated opt-in.

“ViVOtouch gives merchants a powerful marketing tool to influence their customers in real time, provide tailored and targeted campaigns as well as gather powerful insights about shopping behavior that is simply unavailable through legacy point-of-sale systems,” says Mohammad Khan, president of ViVOtech. “With ViVOtouch, consumers can tap their phone on a shelf tag to instantly retrieve product information, personalized offers and user product ratings for an informed shopping decision, which simultaneously provides shopper insights to the retailer.”

According to the latest estimates, the industry will see 37% growth by 2016, bringing the industry’s total value to $22.6 billion at that time.

“The popularity of smartphones and the increasing availability of mobile media that can include mobile advertising are the main game-changers,” said Rickard Andersson, telecom analyst at Berg Insight.

The mobile app revolution, however, has done as much to further the industry as smartphones have.

“Brands are now progressively embracing the mobile channel, including the entire range of apps, from games and entertainment to utility applications. Also, mobile Web advertising and opt-in SMS [Short Message Service] campaigns are popular,” Andersson adds.

Facebook is widely anticipated to emerge as one of the biggest future players in the mobile marketing and advertising realms.

“Many acquisitions have recently taken place within the mobile marketing industry, and further consolidation is expected to bring about an ecosystem consisting of a few dominant digital advertising networks spanning all types of devices,” the Berg report reads.

With a new year upon us and a plethora of resolutions now in effect, the drive to drop the bad habit of smoking is one of the biggest annual aspirations of millions of Americans. But in 2012, younger smokers will have an additional aide to cushion their laudable efforts to quit.

The National Cancer Institute is rolling out a new program dubbed Smokefree T-X-T. According to CNN, it’s a free text message service “that provides 24 hour encouragement, advice, and tips to teens trying to quit smoking.”

And it’s easy. Teens sign up and select a reasonable date to quit. After that, text messages timed to their selected quit date are sent on a regular basis. Following their quit date, they will continue to receive texts for up to six weeks.

“With 75 percent of youths between the ages of 12 and 17 owning a cell phone, there is immense potential for mobile technologies to affect health awareness and behavior change among teens,” says Erik Augustson, a behavioral scientist in NCI’s Tobacco Control Research Branch.

According to experts who have guided smokers through non-smoking and related recovery programs in the past, the first six weeks of a new effort to quit smoking are critical to the overall effort. But getting youngsters to quit early is a vitally important goal in light of the future health damage that can be prevented.

The National Cancer Institute says 20% of American teens are smokers “and most will continue to smoke as they age.”

The following is a guest post from Shane Neman, CEO of Web-based SMS marketing provider Ez Texting.

One of the most consistently exciting things about working in the SMS Marketing business is watching how quickly things change. When I got into this business, six years ago, text messages were just beginning to catch fire, there was no such thing as an iPhone and my BlackBerry was the ultimate in cutting edge mobile tech. Every year brings change when it comes to the mobile industry, and 2011 was an especially busy year – which is why it’s important to look back at the past 12 months.

Over the past couple of weeks we have been looking at the many things that affected Ez Texting this year, internal and external.  What really stood out was the degree to which we are affected by changes in the broader world of mobile (outside of the mobile marketing ecosystem). Whether you develop platform specific apps, power mobile websites, run mobile ads, or provide text messaging services, as a marketer you cannot ignore the larger, external trends. After compiling our list and sharing it with our team here, we realized that a lot of other mobile-focused marketers would find the content interesting. So, we decided to put together a public review of 2011’s biggest stories in mobile.

Our list covers important hardware and operating system shifts, carrier takeover attempts (and failures), and important events in emerging technologies like mobile payments and location based services. This was, like I said, a very busy year, and some stories needed to be updated just this week (AT&T/T-Mobile), while others await conclusions (the fate of RIM and its BlackBerry). Other stories made our first draft, but ultimately got cut from the final list (more wireless device subscriptions than citizens) – again, showing what a wild year this truly was. So browse our top stories, read our quick bits of analysis on each event, and if you think we missed anything leave a comment here.

About Ez Texting

Ez Texting provides web-based SMS Marketing services to over 50,000 clients.  Since 2006, Ez Texting’s do-it-yourself service has been used by clients ranging from small organizations to Fortune 500 firms.  Text message marketing features like mobile coupons, keyword autoresponders, and efficient group messaging allow Ez Texting clients to reach their customers wherever they are, at anytime.  Follow the company on Twitter at @EzTexting and follow CEO Shane Neman at @ShaneNeman.

According to the latest data and corresponding insights from Nielsen, U.S. teenagers have tripled their mobile data usage in the last year – all while remaining kings and queens of texting.

Messaging remains the centerpiece of mobile teen behavior in the U.S. The number of messages exchanged (SMS and MMS) hit 3,417 messages per month per teen in Q3 2011, averaging seven messages per waking hour. Teen females are leading the charge, sending and receiving 3,952 messages per month versus 2,815 from males.

Aside from messaging, Nielsen announced, data heavy activities such as mobile internet, social networking, email, app downloads, and app usage are the most popular mobile activities.

“Teenagers have officially joined the data tsunami,” the report reads, “more than tripling their mobile data consumption in the past year while maintaining their stronghold as the leading message senders.”

Using recent data from monthly cell phone bills of 65,000+ mobile subscribers who volunteered to participate in the research, Nielsen has analyzed mobile usage trends among teens in the United States. In the third quarter of 2011, teens aged 13-17 used an average of 320 MB of data per month on their phones, up 256 percent over last year and growing at a rate faster than any other age group. Much of this activity is driven by teen males, who took in 382 MB per month while females used 266 MB.

“The explosion in data usage is being driven by an increase in the popularity of media-rich activities – like music, video and the use of apps – which themselves are being fueled by higher smartphone penetration,” says Nielsen managing director Telecom Europe, David Gosen. “As data usage increases, operators need to work out how to maintain the speed and quality of their service and how to charge appropriately. In the US, different operators have tried different options, from tiered data plans to actively targeting consumers who use the most data. Customer segmentation will become increasingly important for operators, as the pressures on profitability challenge the viability of all-you-can-eat data plans.”

Is the information above truly a revelation about American teens, or a no-brainer reality that will probably grow more pronounced over the next twelve months?

On Thuursday, Phizzle – a leading digital marketing and media company with no scarcity of experience in the sports world – announced that the Phoenix Suns have selected Phizzle as its mobile marketing provider for the 2011-2012 NBA Season.

“We are extremely pleased to be the mobile marketing provider of choice for the Phoenix Suns,” said Ben Davis, CEO of Phizzle. “The Suns were searching for a comprehensive mobile strategy to expand the relationship with their fan base. Phizzle’s mobile capabilities are the clear cut answer to their search. With the Phizzle technology, the Phoenix Suns now have access to the entire mobile ‘ecosystem’ permitting ‘real time’ dialogue.

According to the few details made available thus far, Phizzle’s web-based platform, PhizzleMobile, will allow the Phoenix Suns to track specific fan interests and provide more relevant and timely mobile campaigns.

Through the Phizzle platform, the Suns plan to deploy a variety of text messaging campaigns that will provide “fun and stimulating” participatory audience experiences, including Text-2-Win promotions, Text-2-Vote polls and Text-2-Screen.

Lastly, Phizzle is providing the Suns with mobile & SMS marketing tools that create integrated, multi-channel, mobile marketing programs for fans, event sponsors and local advertisers.

On Thursday, Nielsen revealed via Nielsenwire that the majority of 25-34 and 18-24 year-olds now own smartphones – 64% and 53% respectively.

Nearly two-thirds of smartphone owners (62% to be exact) have downloaded apps on their devices during the last thirty days.

Not surprisingly, “games” is the top application category.

Nielsen also points out that the number of smartphone subscribers using the mobile Internet has grown 45 percent since last year.

Underscoring the growing consumer engagement with mobile commerce and mobile coupons, 87% of active app downloaders have used deal-of-the-day websites like Groupon or Living Social.

Lastly, and no big surprise here, “younger groups text the most. In Q3, teens 13-17 sent and received the most text messages (an average of 3,417 each month).”

Ford placed its call-to-action in print ads asking readers to text “FORD” to 63611 to receive more information on Ford vehicles.  After a user texts in, an autoresponder asks the user to respond with which car they’re most interested in.  After that users are asked to respond with their zip code, followed by their full name to be contacted by their local dealer.

Tatango’s Derek Johnson said he stopped the sequence after being asked for his zip code and was prompted three different times over the next month to finish the sequence through different offers and messages.  Messages like “See participating dealer for more details and exclusive offers for this vehicle.  Want offer from your local dealer? Reply with your full name to be contacted.”

The concept of retargeting usually relates to Online advertising and works by “retargeting” marketing messages to users who visited your website and left without converting.  A Website places a cookie in your browser and then ad-networks serve relevant messages trying to get you back to the original site in hopes you’ll eventually convert.  Ford’s SMS campaign uses a similar model by trying to re-engage users who failed to respond to previous messages.  Using a retargeting technique via SMS can be tricky, however, because you run the risk of annoying users much more easily then simply serving up an Online banner.

Still, the concept garnered a 15.4% conversion rate for Ford, which is substantial even by SMS marketing standards.