While most people understand that SMS messaging is popular, even avid cell phone users don’t understand how pervasive text messaging is in our culture. It’s very important to find out just how popular SMS messaging is, especially if you’re a marketer. These facts will serve to put things into perspective for marketers thinking about using SMS to advertise and send promotional information via SMS messaging.

Over 5 billion SMS messages are sent and received each day in the United States.

97% of individuals engage in SMS messaging.

Studies have shown that people typically read text messages within 4 minutes of receiving them onto their cell phone – compared to an average 48 hours for an email.

There are over 270 million cell phones in the United States alone.

By acknowledging these statistics, it isn’t difficult to see that SMS messaging is a proficient way to get people to read what you send them. Many people will leave unread emails in their inboxes for weeks without opening them – and in some cases, these emails never do end up being opened. This simply doesn’t happen with text messages. If you are like the 97% of individuals who engage in text messaging, you undoubtedly read your messages promptly, epitomizing the reason why SMS messaging an excellent marketing medium