Any business interested in an integrated marketing campaign cannot afford to overlook text messages or SMS marketing. Your business needs an SMS marketing strategy to reach your existing and potential customers on their mobile devices.
Many of us send or receive text messages and push notifications daily. This alone is one of the main reasons SMS marketing is a channel that savvy marketers consider in their marketing mix to reach their target audience.
According to Wikipedia, direct marketing is a form of SMS marketing. Today, we have subsumed direct text marketing under mobile marketing, which includes rich media embedded into the marketing messages and those messages sent via mobile applications besides SMS.
Let us look at some staggering SMS marketing statistics on why business owners like you need to consider using text messages for customer support issues and much more.
Have you have been using simple texting or text messages instead of a phone call in reaching clients? I hope that after reading these statistics, you will invest more resources into text messages.
According to these SMS marketing stats, approximately 50% of consumers in the US make direct purchases after receiving an SMS branded text/QR code/discount coupon.
SMS marketing is naturally a fertile field of potential for digital marketers. Click To TweetSAP has a study showing 64% of consumers think businesses should converse with customers more often using SMS.
According to some stats, 81% of all mobile users take advantage of text communication.
According to this AdWeek article seeing as 96% of smartphone users use text messages. And 98% of text messages are read compared to 29% of tweets and 12% of Facebook posts. SMS marketing is naturally a fertile field of potential for digital marketers.
The above statistics apply to the US and UK audiences. But it does not mean that text messaging is not achieving a similar engagement rate and results in your geographical region. Because of the widespread availability of mobile devices, even in developing countries. Almost everywhere you go, the average person has a mobile phone.
What makes text messaging appealing as a digital channel for persons in developing countries is that all you need to engage in text messaging is a mobile device and cell phone signal. It does not even have to be a smartphone. Neither do you have to be an internet user to receive messages from company XYZ (for example).
Text messaging is as basic as it gets yet beneficial. It is a mobile marketing campaign that does not discriminate between owners of basic Nokia handsets and smartphone owners.
A study showing 64% of consumers think that businesses should converse with customers more often using SMS. Click To TweetThe person using an inexpensive Nokia handset will receive your text message simultaneously as smartphone users. And the response is the same regardless of whether they are smartphones or simple cell phones.
It’s not like social media, whereby you need to know the etiquette of each social network to use it optimally for business purposes.
Despite its limited character limit, text messages from brand ABC (for example) are guaranteed to be received and read by the mobile phone owner. Whereas with email marketing, for instance, you cannot say for sure that your message will not end up in the recipient’s spam box!
Another good thing to note about SMS marketing messages is that your target audience can opt-in to receive SMS marketing messages from your business.
You give recipients the control to decide whether they want to receive SMS marketing messages from your company.
Other benefits of SMS text messages include the high open rate, click-through rate and quick response time regardless of whether your audience is an American, in the UK or Malaysia. This effectiveness of SMS marketing makes SMS communication a preferred channel for people and companies on a shoestring budget.
So if you are a small business owner, I strongly suggest you consider adding text messaging to your marketing mix. If you have not already. Use it as part of your marketing efforts to offer exclusive promotions to your customers.
With the low cost of text messaging, small business owners on a shoestring budget can focus on using SMS messaging. Use it as a channel to pass your marketing messages across to your target customers.
Table of Contents
13 Facts about SMS Marketing That Will Improve Your Business
Here is a video highlighting 13 facts about SMS marketing that will help to improve your business if your SMS campaign is well crafted.
Video Transcript
- Compared to tweets, Facebook posts and emails, SMS messages have an estimated 98% open rate and read more than other combined channels.
- Most people have their mobile phones on them several hours a day. Thus, they are likely to read your text message within seconds of receiving it.
- Through the use of a shortcode, people can opt-in or opt-out of receiving your SMS messages. The function of opt-in or opt-out ensures you don’t send SPAM.
- The opt-out rate of SMS campaigns is far less than that of email marketing.
- SMS marketing coupons are more likely redeemed and shared with friends than email or newspaper campaigns.
- SMS marketing is the most effective marketing medium for sparking consumer action, as people prefer receiving ads via SMS.
- Some estimate that people respond to SMS messages faster than email messages.
- SMS marketing is an excellent channel to engage and build loyal customers through offers and promos.
- SMS marketing is an inexpensive method of communication in comparison to traditional marketing.
- Integrating SMS marketing into your other marketing campaigns improves your chances of getting your message straight to your customers.
- Due to its 160 character limit, SMS marketing ensures your message goes straight to the point.
- SMS is an excellent channel to get feedback from your customers via surveys, questionnaires and polls.
- A text message is unobtrusive since recipients can read and respond to your message at their convenience.
5 Benefits of SMS Marketing for Business
These are benefits that are got almost immediately through SMS marketing. So, in marketing, when you want people to see something, send it by SMS.
Three things people don’t leave home without are their keys, wallet, and mobile phones. Research has also shown that most text messages are open within five minutes of their receipt.
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So if you want to make sure people read your marketing message, send it by SMS. Although many people are yet to join the social media bandwagon, they may have a mobile phone.
You can have a two-way conversation with your customers via social media. You can also have the same via SMS.
A straightforward opt-in process of SMS leads to more personalised and targeted marketing. This process will lead to better results.
For your SMS marketing to yield results, you must make sure that you build your mailing list from scratch. Build an opt-in process into it.
Thus, only persons interested in your product and services sign up. This method ensures your SMS marketing offers are well-targeted and received. So your SMS is not treated as spam.
Do not send an SMS message if it is not well-targeted. Some mobile apps these days come with various features to track the exact location of the users.
If your mobile app has such features, take advantage of it. Use it to target your audience in their precise location etc.
This feature helps to make your message more personal and practical. If you don’t know who you’re sending your SMS to and the person’s needs, your SMS campaign is not well-targeted.
You are just be throwing money down the drain. Gather as much information as possible about the persons in your database.
It enables you to market the right product or service to the right person at the right time.
When you launch your SMS campaign, subscribers will stop thinking of it as marketing. They start thinking of it as content or service.
Hence your digital marketing message will be received with enthusiasm and acted out.
SMS marketing is effective. Some estimate that the average response rate is 10 to 15 per cent.
It is better than three per cent or less for other advertising mediums like email marketing etc.
SMS is flexible, and you can schedule your SMS days, weeks or even months ahead of the campaign.
Your messages will go out on the exact day/time that you specified.
Also, if your subscribers are in different time zones, this is not a problem.
Why SMS Marketing?
We live in a mobile world, and everyone is on the go! Want your business to stay ahead of the competition? Start using SMS marketing.
Are you thinking of creative and engaging ways to use SMS in your business?
The mobile phone is by far the most commonly used communication device today. Mobile phones have continued to improve over the years, with more and more features and functionalities added each time.
Today you can find some smartphones that are more equipped than the average desktop/laptop computer!
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Compared to other forms of marketing, SMS Marketing is relatively recent. It is a form of mobile marketing that uses short message services or text as a medium of direct advertising.
SMS has been around for about 20 years. The first “Merry Christmas” text message sent was on December 3, 1992, by Neil Papworth.
Research has shown that most SMS are open within five minutes of their receipt. And SMS marketing performs better than email marketing with regards to the readership.
For best results, use SMS marketing with other marketing channels like email, print, etc. Click To TweetUnfortunately, today, some marketers have used SMS marketing as a channel for spam. They send bulk SMS to different persons who did not opt-in to receive text messages from the sender.
This prevalence of spam is why the SMS industry is trending towards opt-in only systems. An opt-in system is where a subscriber gives consent to receive messages from the desired organisation.
When choosing your SMS marketing service provider, make sure that they abide by this policy.
For best results, use it with other marketing channels like email, print, etc.
To have a successful SMS marketing campaign, here are a few of the things you must make sure are in place:
- You need to understand what you are going to promote. Then decide if the SMS is the best channel for such a promotion.
- Use other marketing channels for advertising and supporting your SMS campaign.
- Get your staff involved in promoting it to their circle of friends.
- Have a solid monthly campaign plan in place. Use it to promote your business.
- Set the relevant yardsticks with which you are going to measure the ROI of your SMS campaign.
If you adopt ethical standards in your SMS campaigns, you will reap significant results in your customers’ mobile messaging and mobile communication. Do all these sound too intimidating? You can outsource your SMS marketing services to us.
Disadvantages of SMS Marketing
Low Opt-In
Though, as discussed above, the potential for interaction is high, it can sometimes be challenging to get users to engage via SMS marketing.
The first hurdle you have is encouraging people to opt-in. Moreover, you can’t guarantee that somebody will open and read the messages.
Restricted Content
Your message must be short, 140-160 characters — insufficient space to get your news across.
Fraudulent Spam Messages
These days, people respond negatively to unwanted texts. So, make sure you have their permission to send them SMS and that your SMS marketing complies with privacy and data protection rules.
Bombarding mobile phone users with repeated advertising messages sometimes does more harm than good. These many spam messages annoy, irritate and frustrate users who develop a negative attitude towards firms that are sending the texts which affect their brand adversely.
These days, people are wary of responding to SMS messages because of an increase in fraudulent messages. Different laws require you to make your message marketing clear to the recipient of the text. Any commercial communications must be recognisable.
Repetition
Print, TV or radio advertisements are usually repeated several times to create brand awareness and retention.
SMS messages must be worded each time differently. Otherwise, your users will almost certainly switch off and start to feel like they’re getting bombarded with your marketing message. They might even consider the texts spammy and unsubscribe.
Niche Audience
The disadvantage of having a niche audience that has opted-in is that you will reach fewer people than you would with an ad in a local or national newspaper, for instance.
Platform Diversity
Mobile devices rarely have any standard, as compared to PCs and laptops. They come in different shapes and sizes, and their screen size is never constant. Besides, mobile platforms vastly differ from one another, using different operating systems and browsers. So, creating one campaign for them can get stressful.
Data Privacy Matters
Mobile marketers need to understand and respect peoples privacy online. So marketers should only indulge in permission-based promotional activities.
Navigation on Mobile Devices
Mobile phones usually come with a small screen and no mouse. It means that using it may be difficult for the user, even if the device has a touchscreen.
Thus, most ads may go untouched, as the user may find it too tedious to look through each one of them.
Conclusion
Many people are familiar with receiving mobile messages from businesses and their favourite brands on mobile devices these days.
Have you tried SMS marketing? Share the experience of your SMS marketing effort with us. Need help with your SMS marketing or email marketing campaign?
Contact us. We’ll help you craft a unique marketing message for your SMS campaign to grow your business.
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