One of the main strengths of SMS marketing is the ownership that a business has over the customer experience and the content they receive, which can also include MMS (multimedia message service) messages containing animated images, GIFs, and pictures. When it comes to integrating SMS messaging into your marketing plans, you should be aware of the two main types of content usually sent to an audience, these are promotional and transactional text messages. The aims of promotional SMS text messages are to build brand awareness, increase sales and promote products. For example, these kinds of messages can be used to let customers know about special offers, company announcements, branded events, and useful tips on how to get the most from products.
Transactional text messages provide customers with the necessary information to complete a purchase, such as order confirmation details, shipping information, and delivery updates. Keeping customers well-informed throughout the sales process is a great way to build customer confidence and loyalty. SMS marketing is an affordable and effective tool often used by businesses to promote their products or services. Read more below about how SMS marketing can benefit your business.
1. High Levels Customer Engagement
As with email marketing, a common way to judge the success of an SMS marketing campaign is to look at the amount of customer engagement which can be measured using open rates, typically these are around 98 percent. According to the people at Messente, to ensure competent implementation and management of an SMS marketing campaign, many businesses opt to use SMS marketing software to automate much of the process and provide useful analytics. Another metric to take note of in relation to customer engagement is the click rate, with text messages often outperforming emails, as conversational text messages can often be used to encourage a response from subscribers. ALSO READ: Adding CTA to the Notion of SMS Marketing Proficiently
2. Customers Can Be Reached Instantly
SMS marketing is one of the fastest ways to reach an audience, and the method boasts a 97% read rate within 15 minutes of delivery. Unfortunately, promotional emails are often missed or read too late, however SMS messages are often read instantly, resulting in far higher engagement and conversion rates.
3. A Personalized Customer Service
People often use their phones to communicate with friends and family, meaning it is usually within arm’s reach, therefore with SMS messaging it is possible for businesses to create more personalized campaigns such as VIP programs to communicate with segments of a customer base that are more highly engaged.
4. Integration With Other Channels
For the marketing mix to be effective, it is important that various channels work well together, including SMS. Although SMS messaging is an excellent standalone method of reaching customers, it does however work best when integrated with other marketing channels such as social media and email. SMS marketing has the ability to enhance and support other forms of marketing by making use of the same keywords and hashtags, and directly linking to promotional emails, websites, and social media pages. Integrating SMS with other marketing methods will often result in greater customer engagement and conversion rates across a business’s sales channels.
5. Response Data Can Be Tracked
Although there is a misconception that the effectiveness of SMS marketing is difficult to measure, there are various software packages and tools that businesses can use to provide analytics. This enables businesses to build databases and customer segments, identify the most engaged customers, track delivery rates, and measure return on investment. The analytics within SMS marketing management programs allow businesses to better understand their customer base, so they can create targeted campaigns based on customer profiles and market segments.
6. It’s Cost-Effective
One of SMS marketing’s greatest advantages is its value for money, even if you are sending large amounts of messages. For this reason, SMS marketing is a popular choice for smaller businesses and start-ups with small advertising budgets. Compared to traditional advertising such as television and print advertising such as flyers and posters, SMS messaging is much cheaper and typically a single text message will cost between $0.025 to $0.051, however, rates differ from region to region. If you are looking for new marketing channels with a good ROI, then it is well worth considering the addition of SMS messaging to your marketing mix. SMS marketing has been around for a while, but due to the prevalence of mobile phones in society, it remains one of the most popular ways for small businesses to reach their customers.
