How SMEs can use SMS in their Business Marketing

As a small to medium-sized enterprise, you will always be looking for ways of expanding your marketing outreach and public relations efforts without too much additional cost to your company. Chances are your budget is tight and you are limited in the extent in which you can advertise too. That’s where SMS marketing comes in, offering a cost-effective and accessible solution that you can easily integrate into your everyday output.
Connection
One of the key benefits of using SMS messaging is that it creates a personal and intimate connection with customers. As a local or independent company, in particular, having this kind of connection with customers is of huge importance. You will want to build relationships with them beyond just creating sales. This is how brand loyalty develops and can be really critical in ensuring their repeat custom.
Open Rates
Alongside this is the success rate that SMS has in terms of open rates. Approximately 98% of all SMS messages sent are opened – this is in comparison with e-mail, of which only 20% get looked at. An open rate is crucial to the success of your messaging campaign; without it, the whole process will not be worthwhile. It makes perfect sense to follow through with SMS messaging when you can guarantee that such a large number of your audience will read your message – particularly as it ensures you will get a worthwhile return on investment.
Speed
It’s not just the longer time that people take to open e-mails that makes SMS highly valuable by comparison but also their response rate as well. On average, it will take an individual up to 90 minutes in order to reply to an e-mail. When it comes to text messages, however, it will take them just 90 seconds. This again improves how quickly and easily you will be able to build a relationship with your customers. Life is busy and, chances are, if they wait over an hour and a half to respond, they’re going to forget about what was said. With a text message, their feedback is instantaneous and you’ll be able to develop a quick rapport.
Engagement
SMS marketing is an engaging way of communicating, particularly due to the fact it is very short, concise and to the point. By their very nature, text messages cannot be waffling and verbose. When you speak directly with customers, you are giving them the most relevant and necessary information direct to their fingertips. You’re not trying to inspire them in the same way as with many advertisements which can be quite vague and open to interpretation or leave them to make up their own mind on your product or service. Instead, you are handing them key information directly. It allows you to create a quick and positive two-way road of communication between you and your client base.
Cost-Effective
SMS messaging is a particularly cost-effective strategy of communication and this can ensure you are able to produce high returns on marginal spends. When your budget is tight and you have limited funds, if anything, to spend on marketing, it is crucial that you can get the most out of your investments.
Targeted
What also helps in how successful SMS messaging can be for your SME business is the fact that you are able to target your marketing in a very specific way. As it is permission-based and works on an opt-in principle, you will have had to take your customers’ information directly from them in order to have them on your list. This means that you will have been able to get additional details about them at the point of collecting this information and can put their phone numbers into sectors or lists that are based on their demographics – for example, age, gender, location, job, and so forth.
This is a very useful marketing tactic and allows you to ensure that you are sending the most relevant information to your customers. This will guarantee you have the best return on investment and will also mean you can tailor your message specifically. For example, if they are in the age group that would make them pensioners, you could send out exclusive ‘over-60s offers’ or target your daytime offers towards them at a time when you know that they will be more active than your clients who work during the day.
Relationships
The fact that you will have secured the information from your clients directly also means you will have been able to start a direct and engaged relationship with them before you start your SMS marketing campaign. This gives you a direct advantage as it means you have already allowed them to see the ‘human’ side to your company and have got something to work from when communicating with your customers. It means you can start your messages with sentences that they can relate to – for example, ‘it was great to chat with you in our shop last week’ or ‘we hope you are still loving your haircut that our senior stylist provided to you’ – remember, personalisation is about more than simply using an individual’s name. Adding this extra layer of detail helps to cement that personal connection and makes them more likely to respond positively to your communications. As a small to medium-sized business, customer loyalty really is critical.
Less is More
Despite having this great connection with your customers, it can be easy to get carried away – especially if you see them often or feel as though you know them really well. It is important to remember that you are still operating as a business and being professional is crucial – both in the language you’re using (don’t veer into anything too informal) and in the frequency of your messages. Digital Marketing Magazine found that 83% of people are happy receiving two messages per month, but nothing more than this. Only 2% of people were happy to receive more than five messages a month. If you send anything too frequently, you run the risk of alienating or annoying your customers. In this case, less really is more – even if it is a cost-effective and highly efficient way of marketing your business. There is a fine line and one that needs treading carefully.
Contact Us
Get in touch today to find out how FastSMS can help your business with its SMS marketing campaign.
Related Articles
A Brief History of the SMS Text Message
Despite the surge in popularity of smartphones over recent years and the rapid growth of alternative messaging apps, SMS messaging remains one of the most commonly used and popular methods of communication today. Read this article to learn more about the history of SMS messaging and discover why it is still a highly profitable channel that should be seriously considered in your marketing strategy.
6 Psychological Tips for SMS Marketing Success
Getting to grips with the underlying psychology of how audiences react both consciously and subconsciously to your message is key to achieving the maximum effect in any type of marketing. All kinds of things come into play with different media, from colours and shapes to images and videos. Even the way things move can have a powerful effect on a viewer. Unlike many other forms of marketing, however, SMS marketing is unique in that the only tool you have is words - and not many of them. But armed with a basic knowledge of consumer psychology, 456 characters is more than enough to get the desired effect. In this article, we present our six top tips to take advantage of the psychology of SMS messaging.
5 SMS Myths You Shouldn’t Believe
SMS messaging is a popular topic. The growth of mobile has everyone jumping on board the SMS waggon and they all have something to say. I've compiled a list of five topics that I've seen written about that just aren't true, or at the very least are potentially misleading enough to be called myths. I'm going to try and offer some insight into why these myths exist and what the truth is, as I see it anyway!
5 Festive SMS Marketing tips for Cake Makers
Can You Use SMS Messaging in B2B Sales?
Let’s get the obvious out of the way. B2B marketing really is business to one person. It’s just that one person is playing a role in the buying process, rather than making their own purchasing decisions. But you already know that if you’re in B2B sales or marketing. What you may not know, is how willing those various people are to use their own mobile for business.
How to send the perfect SMS marketing message
SMS Marketing Techniques for Copywriting Agencies
Benefits of recruitment SMS and why it works
Proof SMS Messaging Gets Results: Conversions
Consistent double-digit conversion rates are a hallmark of SMS marketing. Is it all because of mobile coupon redemptions, or can it be used for other marketing objectives? We’ve got examples from different industries and objectives so you can decide for yourself in this latest Results Series blog.
8 Reasons to Use SMS in Your Service Based Business
When the glass ceiling on your annual turnover and profits is governed by the number of hours you have to trade, it's even more important to ensure your marketing strategies are as fruitful and affordable as possible. SMS marketing appears, at first blush, to require a lot in the way of technology, budget and management, but it's incredibly successful for small businesses in service industries - even the ones with small budgets and limited resources...