SMS, or text message marketing, is basically the same as email marketing but with one key difference – you’re marketing to mobile devices instead of PCs. You send your customers text messages on their phones with offers, deals, coupons and news they can use.
SMS has been around for quite a few years and even with all the advances in smartphones and mobile marketing, it’s still the most effective way to reach your audience.
A Higher Response Rate
Do people like being marketed to on their phones? It’s tough to say from surveys. Whenever a marketing firm asks, they get mixed responses. Some people absolutely love it and take advantage of every deal offered. Others see it as an annoying invasion of privacy and prefer to get messages to their email inbox.
The stats, though, paint a totally different picture. Response rate with mobiles is overwhelmingly higher than that of email. Conversion rates are everything from 10% to 60%, which blows email marketing away. Response is also quick, with almost all text messages being opened within the first 15 seconds of receiving them.
Why the great response? It’s because people are always carrying their phones on them. They don’t log in once a day and have to battle spam and junk mail to get to your message. It also feels more personal to get messages from the brands you love straight to your phone. Is your Business Ready for SMS Marketing?
Location-Based Services for Even Higher Response Rate
You get an even higher response rate with location-based marketing. This means using the device’s built-in GPS capabilities to make offers. When your customer enters a certain ‘zone’ defined by you, they get a message offering them a deal. You can tie in your mobile marketing with deals at offline stores.
This works so well because it’s just what your customer’s looking for at just the right time. In other words, it’s a marketer’s dream come true. They’re looking for a place to buy shoes and the minute they step into the mall, they get a message from you offering the deal they were hoping for.
SMS Keyword Marketing
SMS Keyword marketing is growing very quickly. Your business “rents” a particular keyword from an SMS Provider that your customers will send to a specific number. An example is you can type the keyword, ”PAH75791” to 313131, and you will receive a automated response. In this live demo the auto response is a link to demo a mobile web store. SMS Keywords allow you to use offline marketing materials to collect mobile marketing information such as mobile numbers.
This is a very powerful SMS marketing tool because you offer customers a deal, promotion or some reason to check out your keyword. Then they receive a text back from you and you receive their cell phone number for future SMS marketing opportunities.
Using SMS Keywords are a great way to collect mobile phone numbers for future marketing with little effort and mobile customers are more comfortable responding to a keyword than they are giving their mobile number to an unknown sales person.
SMS Is King of the Heap
We now market to mobile phones that have Internet browsers using Facebook, applications, games, and all the other capabilities the device has to offer. But statistics show that SMS still gets the best results. According to a survey by YouGov and SocialMediadd, 77% of the smartphone users they asked said they preferred SMS even when other marketing avenues were available.
This is probably because it’s so simple and people are used to it. It’s also a strategy marketers have used for years, so it’s a well-worn path, whereas these other methods are still largely uncharted territory.
Why Not SMS?
SMS marketing is cheap and easy compared to other methods. It’s something any type of business can use to its advantage. In the same study mentioned above, SocialMediadd reported that only 1 out of 100 of its clients use SMS, where 90% only use email marketing. SMS Keywords are a great way to increase brand awareness and gain valuable mobile numbers for future SMS marketing. Why not go where the conversions are higher?