Facts about SMS Marketing That Will Improve Your Business

Any business interested in an integrated marketing campaign cannot afford to overlook text messages or SMS marketing.

Many of us send and receive text messages daily. This fact alone is one of the main reasons why SMS marketing is a channel that smart marketers consider in their marketing mix to reach their target audience.

Let us take a look at some staggering statistics on why business owners like you need to consider using text messages in your marketing if you have not been doing so.

Have you have been using text messages? I hope that after reading these statistics, you will invest more resources into text messages.

According to some statistics, approximately 50% of consumers in the U.S. make direct purchases after receiving an SMS branded text/QR code/discount coupon.

SAP has a study showing 64% of consumers think that 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 text message, 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.

Although the above statistics mainly applies to the American and UK audience, this does not mean that text messaging is not achieving similar results in your geographical region due to the widespread availability of mobile devices even in developing countries. Almost everywhere you go, the average person has a mobile phone.

Another thing that makes text messaging appealing to persons in developing countries is that all the average person needs to engage text messaging is a mobile device (it does not even need to be a smartphone) and cell phone signal.

Text messaging is as basic as it gets yet beneficial. It is a form of mobile marketing that does not discriminate between owners of basic Nokia handsets and smartphone owners.

The person using an inexpensive Nokia handset will receive your text message at the same time 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.

Despite its limited character limit, with a text message is guaranteed to be received and read by the 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 are thereby giving recipients the control to decide whether they want to receive SMS marketing messages from your company.

Other benefits include the high open rate and quick response time regardless of whether your audience is an American, in the UK or Malaysia.

So if you are a small business owner, I strongly suggest you consider adding text messaging to your marketing mix if you’ve not been doing so 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 as a channel to pass their marketing messages across to their targeted customers.

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

1. When compared to tweets, Facebook posts and emails, SMS messages have an estimated 98% open rate and read more than all the other channels combined.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. The opt-out rate of SMS campaigns is far less than that of email marketing.
5. SMS marketing coupons are more likely redeemed and shared with friends than email or newspaper campaigns.
6. SMS marketing is the most effective marketing medium for sparking consumer action, as people prefer receiving ads via SMS.
7. Some estimate that people respond to SMS messages faster than email messages.
8. SMS marketing is an excellent channel to engage and build loyal customers through offers and promos.
9. SMS marketing is an inexpensive method of communication in comparison to traditional marketing.
10. Integrating SMS marketing into your other marketing campaigns improves your chances of getting your message straight to your customers.
11. Due to its 160 character limit, SMS marketing ensures your message goes straight to the point.
12. SMS is an excellent channel to get feedback from your customers via surveys, questionnaires and polls.
13. 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 the five minutes of their receipt.

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.

As 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 needs, then 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, and 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 computers!

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Compared to other forms of marketing, SMS Marketing is quite recent. It is a form of mobile marketing that uses short message service 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.

Unfortunately 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 only 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:

1. You need to have a clear understanding of what you are going to promote. Then decide if the SMS is the best channel for such a promotion.
2. Use other marketing channels for advertising and supporting your SMS campaign.
3. Get your staff involved in promoting it to their circle of friends.
4. Have a solid monthly campaign plan in place. Use it to promote your business.
5. 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 great results. 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 has to 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 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 messages which affect their brand adversely.

These days, people are wary of responding to SMS messages due to an increase in fraudulent messages. Different laws stipulate you are required to make it clear the sender of the text. Any commercial communications must be recognisable as such. For more information, see selling online and the law.

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 pummeled with your marketing message – they might even begin to consider the texts spammy and unsubscribe.

Niche Audience

The disadvantage of having a niche audience which has opted-in is that you are going to be reaching fewer people than you would with an ad in a local or national newspaper, for instance.

Platform Diversity

Mobile devices usually do not have any particular 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 navigation 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 in detail through each one of them.

Conclusion

Have you tried SMS marketing? Share your experience with us. Need help with your SMS marketing campaigns?

Contact us. We’ll help you craft a unique SMS campaign to grow your business. Thanks for watching!

After reading all these SMS marketing facts, are you ready to take your SMS marketing to the next level? Check out our instant messaging service for businesses now to get started.

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