Marketing experts believe that SMS marketing is certainly a hidden gem and an unsung hero in the advertising world. SMS is an integral part of every businesss marketing strategy for boosting brand visibility and brand awareness in todays mobile-focused lifestyle. Smartphones are dominating almost every aspect of your life and most of you are used to text messaging every single day. Hence, SMS marketing has not lost its significance or relevance even in 2019. Short Message Service or SMS is referred to what we call texting and we know that SMS marketing is important to grow your brand and business in this highly competitive world just like brochures or social media are necessary to boost your brand.
Research reveals that an average individual actually checks his mobile phone approximately 85 times per day. Almost 64 percent of the total population in the world actually has a mobile device today. Moreover, we know that 95% of the adult American population actually has mobile phones. The fact remains that more and more people are increasingly relying on digital information while very much on the go through their versatile mobile devices. This trend is in vogue and reliance on mobile phones and devices is surely bound to grow. If you wish to stay ahead in this fiercely competitive arena, you need to adapt your businesss marketing game to cater to consumer needs. You have to include mobile in your digital marketing and promotion strategy. In this context, you must already be aware that mobile marketing encompasses Rich SMS & SMS, mobile apps, push notifications, websites, and emails.
As more brands are targeting consumers on the move today, SMS has become an integral part of a multi-channel marketing stratagem. However, since very few digital marketing agencies are featuring SMS marketing as their core offering, most of their clients are actually missing out on fruitful communication with potential customers and even losing opportunities in terms of ROI.
According to https://www.forbes.com, social media sites like Twitter and even messaging apps such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp are competing with SMS or short messaging system for attracting consumer attention on their smartphones and other mobile devices. SMS is over 25 years old and it still has the popularity and the staying power. SMS marketing must not be overlooked even in 2019 while chalking out your mobile communications campaigns and marketing plans. Today businesses could take advantage of toll free SMS service providers for boosting their brand and business.
Text Messages Have Higher Open Rate As Compared to Emails
One of the greatest benefits associated with SMS marketing is that text messages enjoy an incredibly high open rate at 98 percent. This shows that SMS gets a higher open rate as compared to all other popular advertising options. SMS marketing surely boasts of a sensational open rate. We know that the average open-rate associated with text messages seems to be 98 percent while that of emails is merely 24.79 percent and social media messages reach just 2% to 3% of your target audience.
Today everyone receives numerous emails and they are flooded with social media notifications every single day. Hence, people often ignore those messages. More often than not emails face the risk of getting lost in the spam folder. Often customers simply throw away fliers or handouts that they pick up from various malls and shopping centers. However, thanks to the predominance of mobile phones and the immense popularity of texting, SMS marketing is still going strong. We understand that almost all text messages are opened while just a fraction of the received emails is read.
SMS Marketing Is Surely Cost-Effective
It hardly costs anything for sending a text message to your customer or potential customer. Even when you are thinking of sending your messages to a host of potential clients, the cost would not be an issue. SMS marketing is usually pretty affordable and much more reasonably priced as compared to other existing marketing options such as Facebook ad spot. As SMS marketing does not burn a hole in your pocket, it is just the right choice for all businesses, especially small businesses and startups who are thinking of advertising and boosting brand awareness without investing a heavy amount in one go.
Print media ads and TV commercials or any other outdoor advertising tools would be quite expensive. This would be unbearable for small businesses. In such a situation, bulk SMS is supposed to be a huge relief for such businesses because of the minimal running costs and low set up. Execution also seems to be easy. At just a fraction of what traditional marketing would cost, you would get optimum results from effective bulk SMS campaigns.
SMS Marketing is Mobile-Friendly
It is extremely important to present your organization or brand as mobile-friendly. In this digital era, more and more consumers are utilizing their mobile devices for doing things such as browsing and shopping. You certainly would not like to miss such type of exposure. You must implement a mobile-optimized marketing stratagem for boosting your overall brand awareness and enhance your mobile marketing campaigns.
Instantaneous Deliverability
SMS literally puts your message directly into the subscribers purses or pockets in a matter of a few seconds only. The average time needed to deliver SMS for SMS service providers and mobile carriers is even less than just 7 seconds. Your SMS travels in lightning speed right from the send point to the received point.
Helps in Reaching a Wide Demographic
Since so many individuals are having cell phones and some other mobile devices, SMS marketing could broaden customer demographic. So instead of concentrating on only a single marketing strategy which might just reach a slice of your demographic, your focus must be on SMS marketing to reach everyone. If they are having their mobile devices which could successfully receive texts, they would be enjoying the messages sent by you.
Boost Customer Engagement
Your SMS should be viewed effectively for enhancing the way your brand would be engaging with your specific customers across the complete customer lifecycle. Customers would be valuing the news and updates on forthcoming developments associated with the business or brand. This valuable information must be best delivered through SMS. Text messaging not only helps in boosting customer engagement, but it also gives your clients an effective way of engaging with you. They start feeling that your business has become really more accessible and essential part of their life. Your business ceases to be just another store that they visit once in a while. Instead, your business seems to be present with them all the time on their phone always prompting them and reminding them about you.
SMS marketing is still going strong, however, you must cross-check yourself whether text marketing is the right strategy for your business or you should avoid it. SMS marketing is ideal for time-sensitive messages. This is the reason why it is unfair to distract somebodys attention with a text message that is not really time-sensitive. Moreover, your SMS must necessarily pertain to specifically what has already been opted-in. In the case, it seems to be flash sales, and then the information must be all about a flash sale and definitely not about a product launch that would be coming up the beginning of next month. SMS marketing could reap immense benefits for your business provided you do it right.