Proof SMS Messaging Gets Results: Opt-Ins

Ever wonder if SMS messaging for business is all hype, or if it can actually get results? Well, wonder no longer. I’ve been scouring the web for the best case studies, industry statistics, and testimonials. I’ve found a ton of proof from a variety of sources that SMS messaging works.

The interesting thing is though, not everyone measures success the same way. For some, it’s the number of opt-ins. For others, it’s all about the sales generated after each campaign. All in all, I counted eight different measures of effectiveness most commonly reported. Instead of jamming them all into one huge blog, I’m going to examine them one by one.

The Results Series, as I’m calling it, will have eight blogs, each focusing on one measure of successful results using SMS messaging. Here are the categories: Opt-ins, Traffic, Conversion, ROI, Customer service, Contests, Sales, and Business growth.

To kick off the series, let’s take a look at opt-ins.

The number of opt-ins is a measure of how many people have agreed to get your SMS messages. They may be marketing or informational messages, but before you can send any, people need to agree to it.

This is the place where every SMS campaign starts, and it might seem difficult. But the numbers tell a different story. Not only do people sign up, but they usually do so quickly once the opt-in campaign is launched. Here are some example numbers of how many, and how fast, businesses received opt-ins:

• 13,000 subscribers in 5 weeks
• 6,000 in one week
• 4,000 per week
• 16,000 in one year
• 163% increase in consumer opt-ins by adding incentive

That last one is important. The other campaigns in the list may also have had an incentive, but in the last case they noticed an incredible increase when they added one to their existing opt-in campaign. Sometimes businesses are afraid to include incentives because people might sign up, then leave after getting the goods.

The data doesn’t support that concern though. On average, retention rates are quite high. Depending on industry, 93-97% of opt-ins remain on the list for other promotions. That means for every 100 or so you get, between 3-7 will grab the deal and leave. You still have up to 97 new subscribers. That’s quite good!

For the 13,000 in five weeks campaign listed above, they found 93% of their opt-ins were still on the list after the five weeks was over. That’s in line with the averages I mentioned above. So, if you’re still debating on whether to add an incentive, stop. Just do it, and you’ll be glad you did.

Another aspect of opt-ins is how much they spend. We’ll get into sales specifically in another blog, but I think the data are important here too. In one case study, a company found that people who opted in spent 80% more than those who were not on their SMS list.

In another example, a car dealership made 76 sales of cars quickly after running one campaign. If it works for big-ticket items like cars, surely it can work for anything.

If you’re in Negative Nancy mode, you might be thinking that your business can’t achieve these kinds of numbers for some reason. You need to stop that too. The examples here are from all sorts of businesses from small to large, food service to retail.

Many of them invested small amounts of money to advertise and execute their campaigns. Others spent more. They used print ads, contests, social media, radio and TV adverts. Some also published on their website or included the opt-in offer in their normal emails.

They were all successful. That’s because they knew how to get in front of their potential customer. Chances are you already know where that is and what channels you’ll need to use. But the data all show that people will opt-in to a business’s SMS messaging program, especially if you offer incentives.

But what happens after you get them on your list? What kind of results can you expect? Tune into the next blog to find out how others have successfully generated traffic for their websites and physical locations.