Short Message Service (SMS) - more commonly referred to as text messaging. An SMS message is 160 characters long. The two most common forms of SMS are Person-to-Person (P2P), where messages are exchanged between two mobile phones and Application-to-Person (A2P), where messages originate from a system or application and are sent to a mobile phone.
SMS is currently one of the most popular messaging formats for sending text messages. As well as interpersonal communication, the ubiquity of SMS makes it ideal for automated communications and marketing campaigns. The roots of SMS go back to the 1980s, when two German engineers began to pioneer a telephone messaging format that was compatible with the GSM standards of the time.
The Rise and Rise of SMS Messaging
On 3rd December 1992, a software engineer called Neil Papworth sent the message “Merry Christmas” to his colleague. This might not sound like a big deal but it was. His message was the first SMS, and it heralded the dawn of a new era in mobile communications. Neil’s first message precipitated an avalanche in mobile messaging. Just a year after it was sent, SMS was popular enough for Nokia to introduce a “beep” feature letting users know when they had received a message. In 1999 a new milestone was reached when users were able to exchange messages on multiple networks.
By the 2010s, hundreds of thousands of messages were being sent every second! SMS texting had become as natural to people as saying hi in the supermarket. The distinctive “text speak” that SMS’s 160 character limit gave birth to has infiltrated our language, with abbreviations like LOL and LMAO common parts of everyday speech. Because of this, many companies view SMS as a crucial marketing campaign tool. Nissan used it to effectively reboost their customer engagement and studies have found that text is the marketing medium most trusted by customers. Now that we’re comfortably into the 21st century, SMS is more popular than ever, and its importance to digital marketing can only increase.
Automated SMS Message Campaigns
Neil Papworth sent the first text from a computer, with a view to developing SMS services for Vodafone. In 1992 he was alone in his achievement. Now, developers all over the world create apps enabling clients and businesses to launch automated SMS campaigns.
To do this effectively, they need access to API resources and messaging platforms that can send and receive high volumes of SMS messages. Sinch specializes in providing exactly this capability to clients. Developers wanting to use Sinch for SMS services have two main options:
Using SMS APIs
Sinch API platforms provide a comprehensive set of resources that clients can integrate into their applications. These add functionality such as sending SMS campaigns, receiving incoming messages and accessing delivery reports enabling customers to evaluate campaign success. Sinch has the following SMS related APIs:
- SMS – API dedicated to sending and receiving SMS messages. It’s useful for orchestrating SMS campaigns.
- RCS – API enabling clients to send rich and engaging mobile campaigns that can default to SMS when messaging non-RCS handsets.
- Conversation – integrates SMS and RCS capabilities into a single API
- Numbers – API allowing clients to look up and search for mobile numbers. This is useful for enhancing SMS campaigns.
To help clients use our resources, Sinch provides extensive documentation in the form of API references.
Using SDKs
SDKs provide a language specific way of integrating API resources into an application that obviates the need to work with raw endpoints. Sinch currently has SDKs in the following languages:
Take a look at the Sinch SMS Product page to learn more about our SMS products, or click here to sign up to our self-service portal and get started today.
