Interactive marketing firm ExactTarget has launched its MobileConnect solution, a cloud-based application to power SMS alerts and mobile marketing messages worldwide.
Available as a standalone application or integrated into the ExactTarget Interactive Marketing Hub, MobileConnect is the next generation of ExactTarget’s mobile marketing application. The company says it offers intuitive message templates, easy-to-use reporting, advanced enterprise management of short/long codes and keywords, and cross-channel integration with campaigns across email, social media and the web.

The solution is delivered via a self-service Interface, with a variety of SMS messaging templates, real-time tracking, shortcode and longcode management and step-by-step message and campaign creation. Integration into the Interactive Marketing Hub allows marketers to associate SMS programs with ExactTarget-powered email, social media and web campaigns to create a single view of each customer’s interactions and message preferences. Built on ExactTarget’s FUEL Software as a Service platform, MobileConnect also scales to meet enterprise messaging needs, from delivering relevant marketing messages to powering highly transactional mission-critical messaging, including real-time data-driven SMS alerts such as travel updates, banking alerts and order confirmations.

According to ExactTarget’s 2012 Channel Preference Survey, almost 70 per cent of US online consumers use text messaging weekly, and of those, 16 per cent have made a purchase after receiving a marketing text message, The survey of nearly 1,500 consumers also found that a quarter of consumers prefer text messaging over all other channels for real-time channel alerts.