Fact: In fact, for at least 60% of consumers, SMS marketing is preferred to other email marketing and push-notification services ( Forbes )
What is SMS Marketing?
SMS marketing, also known as text message marketing, is a method by which businesses and organizations send out specials, coupons, promotions, alerts, and more via highly targeted, permission-based, opt-in text messages. These messages are limited to a max of 160 characters.
Bellow we will list why the SMS marketing is so effective these days.
Why SMS Marketing Is Effective
Do you remember using the Yellow pages to find a business?
What about finding a business through a local mailer or flyer?
These old school marketing techniques may seem like a blast from the past. But there are still businesses relying on dated marketing platforms.
In today’s world, nearly everyone has access to a cell phone… and a mart phone at that! They also spend a significant amount of their time on these devices. Meanwhile, consumers are using smartphones at historic rates. In fact, U.S.
That means there’s a good chance that your SMS messages will reach your subscribers. Think about how fast you check your phone after you hear that “ding” come in for a text message.
Engagement among other marketing platforms can be low: billboards, radio ads, even email marketing. You don’t have to worry about engagement with SMS marketing.
Your audience is just a text away.
Benefits of SMS Marketing
There are many different benefits of SMS marketing, and they vary based on the industry you’re in, and how you choose to use it. Here are some of the most common benefits experienced by marketers and business owners who use SMS.
- Increase foot traffic to your business
- Increase your sales and customer base
- Reward loyal customers while creating new ones
- Establish a stronger personal connection with your customers
- Instantly communicate with customers
- Customers can easily forward valuable text promotions to friends and family
- Customer stay in the loop with your business
- Customer won’t feel forgotten due to lack of marketing reach
SMS Marketing Statistics
Now that we have some background on why SMS marketing is so powerful, let’s take a look at just a few of the most important text messaging stats
- 95% of text messages are read within the first 5 minutes
- 70% of Americans would like offers from their favorite businesses sent right to their cellphones
- The average American looks at their cellphone 150 times per day
- 22% of text messages with value are forwarded on to friends and family
- The average redemption rate for a mobile coupon is 20%
Use SMS to complement the rest of your digital marketing strategy
The beauty of digital marketing is that there are so many channels that you can use to interact with your customers. All of these channels tie together to create a marketing communication system that enables businesses to build relationships with customers and leads at great scale.
SMS and email marketing are two channels that are very complementary. You can create campaigns through both channels, using email for including more detailed information and SMS to communicate more time-sensitive or urgent information.
Make sure your contacts have opted in to SMS
Text messaging is a very effective and direct line of communication to the customer. But, there are many rules that you should consider when planning your SMS marketing strategy. The first, and most important of these is receiving permission from your contacts to send them SMS messages.
SMS has an extremely high open rate, but this won’t help you if you’re sending messages to people who don’t want them. Not to mention opt-in is required in most countries
Be mindful of the timing of your messages.
Unlike email, which is only checked a few times daily (at most), people open text messages almost immediately. This is great for urgent messages, but you don’t want to abuse this power by disturbing contacts at odd hours in the day.
Would you want to run out and use a coupon that just woke you up at 2 AM on a Wednesday night? Didn’t think so.
Some countries even have laws about when you can send marketing text messages (e.g. France does not allow SMS marketing on Sundays, holidays, or anytime after 10 PM).
Include your company’s name in your messages.
When sending bulk SMS messages, most providers send them through a shortcode, which means your contacts won’t know it is coming from you. That is why you have to let your contacts know who is sending the message in the first place.
You don’t want to send a promotional coupon to customers and not have them know where to go, right?
Conclusion
One of today’s biggest marketing challenges is getting your product or service in front of your target audience. Information overload has our inboxes full to overflowing, and ads are so common on our social media accounts that we hardly notice them anymore. This is where SMS finds its advantage.