SMS marketing is a great way to reach out to an audience. Most of us have our phones on us most of the time and every notification we hear we usually check. We may not directly open up the text, but chances are you'll see the notification. If email was a good way to market a campaign, text based messaging is even better. Here's the statistic that will floor you—98% of SMS messages are opened!
What is SMS marketing?
SMS stands for short message service which is a long word for a text message. SMS marketing is a digital campaign that is centered around sending a text to customers or prospects. A few common strategies that are used:
- A sale or promotional offer
- A special written thank you to a user that just signed up for your services.
A well written campaign that has SMS market integrated into it can benefit marketers. SMS keeps the audience engaged better than a email messaging campaign.
Performance VS Email
Traditional email campaigns are about 20% open rate and ~3% click through rate. That's considerably low when we compare it to SMS messaging. As we've already pointed out SMS open rates are ~98% and click through rates are around 45%.
| Email Marketing | SMS Marketing | |
|---|---|---|
| Open Rate: | ~20% | ~98% |
| Click Through Rate: | ~3% | ~45% |
| Deliverability: | ~90% | ~99% |
| Spam: | ~50% | 2% |
Benefits of SMS Marketing
The benefits of SMS marketing are two-fold. You gain the attention of the recipient almost immediately and since they opted-in already, the consumer is more likely to click. Some benefits of SMS include:
- Instant notification
- Cost effectiveness
- Wide audience
- High open, response and click rates
What should be included in a campaign
There are many things to think about when creating an SMS campaign. For instance, if the users of your audience are dog groomers and they have customers that want to setup an appointment through the website, you can have an event action take place whenever their customer submits the appointment form. This will send a transactional SMS text to the customer asking them to verify the appointment. Something that is an after thought is a disclaimer. This also needs to be in the message. Here are other examples of components that should be included in the campaign:
- Auto replies
- Opt-in and opt-out
- Short code registration
- List verification
Why your company should use SMS marketing
Since SMS is still a newer technology that doesn't have a large presence in Business-to-Business marketing as it does in B2C but with the right strategy, your business can gain more clients and customers. A well written strategy should implement a customer focus and identify the persona. If you're not using SMS in your marketing strategy, let it compliment your email marketing and allow them to work in harmony.
As always, if your company needs help in an SMS Marketing campaign we would love to hear from you. Remember, you can call, email or connect with us on social media and we will answer questions that you may have. Visit our Contact page to see how to stay in touch.
