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.
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| Checkout SMS article |
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.
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.
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. Why not go where the conversions
are higher?
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