SMS marketing is a popular way of reaching and engaging with customers and it has become as important as email, Facebook, Twitter and other direct to consumer marketing channels.
The benefits of text messaging are massive especially since virtually everyone owns a mobile phone.
Businesses know this and it means that they can instantly engage their best customers without worrying about their text message being blocked by SPAM filters, or ad blockers allowing them to reach 100% of their customer base which ultimately means more revenue generated per campaign.
What Are The Benefits of SMS Marketing?
1. SMS Is More Reliable
There’s nothing worse than spending hours crafting the perfect email marketing campaign only to have it end up in the SPAM folder.
While most email marketing specialist will follow best practices to ensure they’re not using trigger words the fact is you’re going to lose a good portion of your emails due to the tight restrictions around email sending.
2. High Open Rates
As mentioned above, emails are plagued with deliverability issues, but also there is an intense competition going inside the email inbox.
When you combine low deliverability with high competition it’s not hard to see why up to 80% of your email campaign is not opened by the recipient – yes, the average open rate for email is only 20.1%!
Compare that shocking data point with SMS where you can have anywhere from 82-98% of people open and read your emails.
That’s a 400% increase in open rates.
3. Cost Effective
Compared to other forms of marketing SMS is one of the cheapest.
Google Ads are around $2 per click and depending on your industry can be $20-$50 per click!
And Facebook hovers around 0.45c to $2 per click on average.
Keep in mind that these are just for clicks and the cost per click can vary widely depending on other variables like relevance scores, targeting and the words you use.
For SMS you’ll pay anywhere from 2 -7 cents per SMS flat rate.
On the other hand, for emails, you get charged a monthly rate that increases based on the number of subscribers you have (regardless of whether you send emails or not). If you have thousands of subscribers, this gets expensive.
With text message marketing you’re only charged for an SMS message that you send regardless of whether you have 1 subscriber or a million.
4. It Levels The Playing Field
Typically speaking the deeper your pockets the more you can pay to get the very best marketing talent on your team.
You can hire the best email specialists, advertising gurus and copywriting wizards which small businesses’ simply won’t have access to.
Online SMS services like 160.com.au allow their customers to achieve exceptionally high open and response rates out-of-the-box, you don’t need to be an expert – create a compelling offer, write it out and push send – that’s it!
5. SMS = Immediacy
97% of text messages are read within the first 4 minutes.
This makes text messaging one of the fastest marketing channels around today.
This makes it especially appealing to business that needs to move stock quickly or restaurants that need to make last minute bookings.
6. Integrate Into Existing Marketing Channels
When it comes to marketing, being able to integrate and automate your campaigns is essential.
The great thing about SMS is that it can plug into your existing software platforms.
Online retailers use it to send out automated abandoned cart messages with a special offer to get the person to complete the purchase.
Professional services use SMS to send reminders and follow-ups to clients inside their CRM systems.
Due to the flexibility of SMS technology, it can be used in countless ways to guarantee your messages get read by the right people.
7. Segmentation
One of the most powerful strategies marketers use is finding ways to increase the relevancy of their campaigns to the people they’re sending them to.
The reason is simple:
- Increased sales
- Reduced unsubscribes and complaints
- Increase buyer/life-cycle
- Stronger brand connection
- Reduced competitive threat
Just like email, SMS marketing campaigns can be segmented into specific groups so that when you send out a text message advertising campaign, it goes to the people who are most likely to respond and purchase.
