8 Key Reasons SMS Marketing is So Effective

With so many different channels available to contact your customers on, you might be feeling overwhelmed by the choice and unsure if certain channels are suitable for you and your audience. SMS marketing has been used to great success by many businesses for years. You might not have run an SMS marketing campaign yourself, but you are likely to have received some form of SMS communication from a business. Whether that’s a commercial brand running a competition or a healthcare provider, such as your GP or dental practice, sending you an appointment reminder. If you have run an SMS marketing campaign before, you’re likely to already be aware of the effectiveness of the platform for communicating with customers, but might need help justifying your use of SMS messaging to other people or departments in your business. Below, we’ve listed out the key reasons SMS marketing is so effective.

Adaptable across markets

One of the reasons SMS marketing is so effective is that it’s suited to B2C and B2B audiences. It can be used by commercial brands, for internal communications by businesses, and it is also appropriate for third-sector and public-sector companies. SMS marketing is also versatile across industries, from retail to healthcare, and can be used for a range of communications. The adaptability of SMS marketing also means that if you’re looking to move into a new market or a new sector with your brand, you already have a developed channel you can use to target your customers.

Efficient at reaching people

60% of people across the world own a mobile phone, which means your marketing is almost guaranteed to reach people within your target market. This also means your communications can carry across the globe, regardless of the international markets you’re trying to reach.

Results

The statistics about SMS marketing are incredible and really highlight the full opportunity the channel represents when reaching and communicating with customers. Research suggests that 98% of SMS messages are opened, making it even more successful than email marketing. Most people send and receive text messages every day and have been doing so for a number of years, so opening and responding to your message should come as almost second nature to the people you’re sending your communications to. The average click-through rate for SMS messaging is 19% and as most people have set their phones to alert them once a message is received, you can feel optimistic about the speed in which your message is opened, and hopefully clicked.

Time efficient

Another huge advantage of using SMS marketing is that it can be almost instantaneous to draw up and send out a campaign. You don’t have to spend time designing and amending an SMS messaging campaign, once you’ve worked out your message and the people you want to send it to, you simply need to construct the text – which takes the same amount of time it would to type a text out on your own phone. You can use SMS messaging to react almost instantaneously to company information as it breaks, offering customers information about deals and discounts as soon as they’re agreed. Another amazing fact about SMS messages is that 90% of them are read within 3 minutes of the text message being sent, making its click-through and engagement levels more effective than most other channels.

Due to the time-efficient nature of creating an SMS messaging campaign, it also means the campaign is extremely cost effective. The time and manpower needed to design, amend and edit an email or printed direct mail campaign mean in-production costs of your communications are high before you’ve even sent them out. Thanks to the speed and ease in which SMS marketing campaigns can be built and sent, you will save hours in time and money, meaning any response to your campaign will increase your ROI on your communications, even if the response from your customers is low.

Eco-friendly

Another way SMS marketing is effective is that it leaves no carbon footprint, and as a result is eco-friendly. Unlike direct mail or offline press, it requires no printed paper, and unlike meetings and events, there is no travel required when sending out your campaign.

It’s direct

One of the most effective aspects of SMS messaging is that it arrives directly in the recipient’s inbox, and often will remain as an alert on the person’s phone until it is opened; they don’t need to login or open an app as they would with email. With an overwhelming amount of content created each day, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to reach the people you wish to target the most, but SMS overcomes this challenge by dropping directly into a person’s phone.

It’s measurable

Your campaign is also trackable as you are able to monitor and measure the delivery and click rate of each of your SMS messages, using analytics software. This means that you’re able to quickly review the ROI of your campaign, using the data about the messages you’ve already sent to decide whether you continue to send out the campaign, or stop after the first batch of text messages has been sent.

Boost your multi-channel campaign

SMS messaging is also effective when used as part of a multi-channel campaign to bolster other marketing activity. For example, if you’re a retail business looking to promote an upcoming sale, you could send an email out to customers a week before the sale goes live, then send an SMS message to customers the day before your sale opens offering them an exclusive discount. On the day of the sale, you can send another reminder text out about the sale, which you can then tie into your social media activity, throughout the sale period.

If you’re looking to build your first SMS marketing campaign and want to ensure you get the maximum ROI for your efforts, contact FastSMS today, and we will connect you will an expert in your sector.