These days, mobile messaging is a key global platform for content consumption and consumer engagement, but brands face challenges to grab hold of the potential of mobile as a direct-to-consumer communications enabler.

Based on experience working with the carriers and brands, Acision, a global leader in mobile messaging, and Soli, a mobile marketing channel, recently partnered up to create an new media model offering global corporations a broad connection to consumers through messaging. 

The two companies can now solve issues by connecting the brand directly to the operator and omitting the need for other third party aggregators. Acision (News - Alert) and Soli plan to transform the mobile marketing ecosystem by creating a direct messaging channel.

In creation of this partnership, Soli approached Acision in an effort to deliver on the promise of mobile marketing.  Mobile messaging is the only mobile channel to not have had a transformational innovation since its failure as a marketing channel. The channel is globally fragmented from a technical point of view and economically misaligned with marketers.

“We are to properly align the economic with those of traditional media mix models of CPM (cost per impression) like television, print or digital display; CPA (cost per acquisition) like search, affiliate or direct response and plausible transaction fees enabling marketers to evaluate mobile in their overall successful measures and increase investment. The result of this is marketers save up to 40 percent and carriers make up to 30 percent more revenue versus alternatives,” Mark Kaplan, founder and CEO, Soli, told TMCnet.

Soli is the first messaging channel that will give brands a direct channel to their audience, enabling them to reach their next billion consumers in emerging markets through SMS, MMS, social and instant messaging.  Soli builds audiences for brands, allowing them to utilize Soli’s platform to engage with consumers that don’t have smart phones or Internet access.

“Messaging is a key global platform because it represents that broadest global audience,” Kaplan explained. “Depending on your source, messaging represents a broader audience that televisions, smartphones and PCs combined. In multichannel markets like the U.S. and Western Europe, messaging is the marketer's dialog with their consumer, their browser is the brand's community destination, and their applications are bespoke experiences for power users.”

Soli and Acision will work together to implement faster and more rewarding marketing services. Enterprises will have more control and transparency over audience reach and the success of campaigns through standardization of the delivery process, increased global coverage and high-level reporting. 

Examples of the new service delivery models include integrated mobile couponing, SMS rewards, and promotions.   The new offering provides global enterprises with the platform needed give local businesses the tools and education to build loyalty in their community, and provide consumers with a direct connection to the brands and businesses they trust. The platform provides an explicit opt-in/opt-out approach to campaigns from point of origination to termination, while maintaining the integrity of the consumer data. 

“The future of mobile is in its modality,” said Kaplan. “Mobile devices are a personal platform and people are becoming more multimodal. They consume text as an interactive communications channel (i.e. Twitter, Skype, SMS), the internet as communal information and sharing forum channel (see Facebook (News - Alert), Pinterest, Google) and applications as robust use case specific lifestyle functions of entertainment and utility (i.e. Square, AngryBirds, Groupon).”

However, mobile devices will evolve and messaging may enhance to where functions like facetime and mobile websites improve their usability and security, while applications will become more integrated with our physical world.