{"id":17725,"date":"2019-01-17T18:12:24","date_gmt":"2019-01-17T18:12:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.gsma.com\/futurenetworks\/?post_type=digest&p=17725"},"modified":"2019-10-28T11:24:28","modified_gmt":"2019-10-28T11:24:28","slug":"2019-will-see-rcs-transform-digital-marketing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.gsma.com\/solutions-and-impact\/technologies\/networks\/digest\/2019-will-see-rcs-transform-digital-marketing\/","title":{"rendered":"2019 Will See RCS Transform Digital Marketing"},"content":{"rendered":"

2019 Will See RCS Transform Digital Marketing<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Over the course of 2018, Rich Communications Services (RCS) proved its capacity not only to work as promised, but to make the brands using it some serious returns on investment.\u00a0 RCS Business Messaging has now been established as the natural successor to SMS marketing: allowing users to interact with brands in far more engaging ways, with the use of multiple new dynamic and visual features, while offering greater guarantees of their privacy and security while doing so.<\/p>\n

The sandwich chain Subway, for instance, quickly attracted more than 5 million users to their RCS campaign \u2013 which enjoyed an 85% retention rate, and more than double the conversions achieved on their most successful SMS campaign. \u201cI don\u2019t know what there is not to like about RCS,\u201d reflects<\/a> Subway\u2019s Chief Digital Officer Carissa Ganelli. \u201cWe saw 146% lift, and a between 50% and 60% rise in conversion rates \u2013 not just open rates, not just retention rates, but actual sales. The consumers are there \u2013 they\u2019re waiting for it, and they\u2019re already using it.\u201d Clothing retailers Express, too, have seen<\/a> the lowest opt-out rates of any marketing campaign to date \u2013 all, as the world\u2019s first clothing retailer to use RCS, on an essentially blank canvas.<\/p>\n

A further tranche of launches across Asia, Europe and the Americas brought the total number of operators offering RCS to 74, in 55 different countries, by the close of 2018.\u00a0 Crucial to this momentum has been the GSMA\u2019s RCS Business Messaging Labs<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0 For any ecosystem to develop, its constituent parts must find time and space to convene, and these are the place to do so worldwide. \u00a0So far 20 Labs have been held \u2013 more than half of which took place over the course of last year \u2013 bringing together more than 1800 attendees from participating operators, brands, developers and marketers.\u00a0 These include Awareness Labs, designed for companies new to the promise of RCS; Innovators Labs, for those already making strides in contributing to the future of business messaging; and Thought Leaders Labs, for those at the cutting edge and in a position to set the strategic agenda for the ecosystem as a whole.<\/p>\n

The single most significant development of 2018, however, was undoubtedly the release<\/a> of Universal Profile 2.2, the latest industry-agreed set of technical standards and features which guides the process of RCS\u2019 development.\u00a0 This latest version brought in key advances in AI chatbots, an essential ingredient to the commercial viability of RCS\u2019 capacity to scale.\u00a0 Key among these were verification of chatbots \u2013 so that users can establish at a stroke from a third party that the feature is operating legitimately \u2013 and anonymisation of the user themselves while they use chatbots. As users become increasingly conscious of their online data security, following a series of high-profile breaches over the last year, this marked an important proof-point of the seriousness with which the mobile industry takes consumer privacy. Improvements were also made to the speed with which common inquiries can be made, to avoid RCS becoming too heavily dependent on extensive typing.<\/p>\n

The Universal Profile\u2019s essential task is to enable RCS to grow, and delivery of that goal is now well on its way.\u00a0 At the heart of the Universal Profile\u2019s purpose is interoperability; the importance of this is difficult to overstate, as it allows users to communicate and switch between their different devices seamlessly. The announcement in Q3 2018 that Samsung and Google would collaborate<\/a> to ensure their respective business messaging clients would work on each other\u2019s devices underscored the commitment of the industry\u2019s largest players to the common standards Universal Profile provides, which is naturally crucial to its success.<\/p>\n

So what\u2019s next? Put simply, 2019 will be the year in which conversation turns from the merits of RCS Business Messaging as an exciting new prospect, to how best it can be deployed at scale.\u00a0 Monthly active users have already well surpassed 215 million, and are expected to more than double over the coming years; the total market value of RCS services is forecast to reach 74 billion by 2021.\u00a0 Those seeking either to lead the process of making good on the promise of RCS, or join anew, don\u2019t have long to wait: the next Thought Leaders Lab will take place in Florida on 24th<\/sup> January, and on 24th<\/sup> February, the day before Mobile World Congress kicks off in Barcelona, our next Awareness Lab<\/a> will induct the next generation of those offering the increasingly extensive and integrated services 2019 will bring in RCS Business Messaging.\u00a0 They will have a busy year.<\/p>\n

How to get involved in RCS in 2019:<\/p>\n