SMS marketing has a sensational open rate

SMS marketing is way ahead of the competition when it comes to open rate.  The average open rate for text messages is 98%, compared to only 24.79% for emails.  The statistics for social media look completely  hopeless since you can expect your message to reach only about 2-3% of your target potential customers.

We receive so many emails and are swamped by so many social media notifications on a daily basis that we’ve developed a form of ad blindness.  We simply ignore them.  However, we’re used to mainly receive text messages from our close friends and family.  This makes SMS a more personal platform.  Let’s be honest, it bothers us when we have even a single unread text message notification on our phones.

SMS marketing still has little competition

In an entire day the average consumer is exposed to around 3500 marketing messages.  Marketing clutter is becoming a major problem for marketers and advertisers.  Consumers are overwhelmed with marketing content, making it difficult for brands to get noticed. 

So, SMS is one of the best ways to break through the clutter and reach your target customers.  Hence, SMS  marketing, despite its effectiveness, remains largely underused.  Research showed that only 21% of brands leverage SMS to communicate with customers.

SMS helps increase customer engagement levels

There’s a misconception that SMS messages can only be used for reminders or to send vouchers and discount codes when you can do so much more.  A timely SMS message can do a great job in engaging customers in ways which email or social can’t achieve.

What makes these text messages so great is that they are very timely, personal and relevant.  They also make you feel more secure as you’d know what to expect and you feel in control of the situation.

SMS is more reliable

Don’t you just hate it when you’ve spent hours crafting the perfect email and then it goes straight to spam?  Even if you’ve followed all the best practices to dodge the spam folder you can never ensure 100% deliverability.  It’s even harder when it comes to B2B communication.  Bigger companies and enterprises usually have granular email gateways with extended security.  

Recent Research reported that spam messages account for 57% of all email traffic worldwide.  You can imagine that spam filters are working even harder to ensure that email users receive safe, solicited content.  While mobile providers also process text messages for spam, if your text doesn’t look spammy it is much more likely to make it to the inbox.  This makes SMS a more reliable channel to communicate with customers.

SMS provides greater reach

On a global scale, more people own a mobile device than they are connected to the Internet.  Currently, 64% of world’s population owns a phone, whereas only 48% are connected to the internet.

Of course, this information is not location-specific and numbers tend to fluctuate in different parts of the world.  Regardless, SMS can help you reach customers who don’t have an Internet connection and with whom you wouldn’t be able to interact otherwise.  And this doesn’t only refer to the poorly connected parts of the world but also to the most connected areas such as the USA.  It all depends on your target market.

SMS provides a more personalised experience

Why go to such lengths as to personalise your campaigns?  Well quite simply, because it works, it provides a better user experience and customersexpect it from you. Bulk messages just don’t cut it anymore for a number of reasons.  To begin with, every customer is on their own unique journey. Every individual has different motivations to try, buy or stay loyal. So they expect you to meet them where they’re at on their journey.

Statistics and case studies show the same findings – customers want to feel important and seek personalised experiences.  That’s why businesses that personalise web experiences see on average a 19% increase in sales.  And 39% of customers spend more if they receive a personalised mobile coupon.  It’s safe to say that personalisation is becoming increasingly important and it’s the future of marketing.  So as marketers we need to better leverage the customer data available and find new ways to deliver more personalised experiences.

SMS offers immediacy

SMS is one of the most immediate channels out there.  With a whopping open rate of 98% and with 90% of messages being read within 3 minutes, brands can be sure that their most critical messages will be read right away.  This enables brands to send time-sensitive messages such as last-minute deals, flash sales, event-related promotions, holiday greetings and so on.

For example, retail and other consumer goods brands can leverage SMS to increase sales on short or single day promotions.  Additionally, restaurants can send deals out in the late afternoon or early evening when people are still deciding where to go out to eat.  This gives you the possibility to provide ample time for users to take action, while still creating a certain amount of urgency.  The potential of SMS is limitless.  Few other marketing mediums can boast such immediacy, making SMS an extremely valuable tool when it comes to instant communication.

SMS integrates with other channels

It’s important that your campaigns are integrated and that the different promotions methods are well coordinated and reinforce each other.  One of the best things about SMS marketing is that it is great as a standalone channel but also plays well with other channels.

Social and traditional media are not always the most effective channels to reach customers on time.  You can integrate these channels with SMS to ensure that your message will reach customers who haven’t read your email and let them know about your offers.  Reportedly, a follow-up SMS message encouraging customers to check the latest email offer you sent can help increase email open rates by 20%–30%.

SMS marketing is easy to track and analyse

If you don’t know what’s working and what’s not, how can you adjust campaigns accordingly, let alone improve them?  You can’t.  That’s why it’s essential to track and analyse how your marketing efforts are performing.  

This also goes for SMS Marketing.  Thankfully, SMS Marketing makes it easy to track and analyse your campaigns. It allows you to track deliverability rates, open rates, CTRs, among others.

SMS has a great return on investment

Return on investment is one of the most important metrics to measure to determine the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.  At the end of the day, it all comes down to the bottom line.  When done right, SMS marketing has a generous ROI.  For example, the British motor racing circuit Silverstone sent a text message to 45,000 people in their database, inviting them to buy tickets for an upcoming Formula 1 race.  Just this single message resulted in 680% ROI.  

This success is due to two very important factors.  Firstly, that the message was very timely and also that the offer inside the message was highly relevant to Silverstone’s audience.  As you can see, SMS marketing has a very strong potential when executed with careful planning and strategy in place.  So to make the most of SMS marketing, it’s essential to ensure that your SMS marketing efforts are aligned with your overall marketing strategy and initiatives.

SMS messages are easy to share

We trust the people we know.  It’s only natural.  That’s why 92% of consumers believe suggestions from friends and family more than they believe advertising.  Trust is what makes word of mouth marketing (WOMM) so effective and important to every marketing activity.  If used well, WOMM is a great vehicle for exposure and distribution.  Having said that, the easiest way to earn someone’s trust is if a person close to them recommends the particular product or service.

As opposed to other channels such as radio, TV and at times even social media, SMS makes it easy for people to share your messages with friends and family.  All they need to do is forward it to the desired person.  SMS also has another advantage when it comes to sharing – privacy.  SMS is a more private way to exchange messages as opposed to social media where everybody can see what you shared with your friends.

Rich SMS allows you to send any type of content

While in the past many marketers were put off by the fact that SMS was quite restrictive as it was only text-based and very character limited, that’s not the case anymore. Rich SMS allows you to send virtually any type of content.  Rich SMS even enables you to send more types of content than most channels including email and social.

You name it: traditional SMS messages, games, scratch cards, surveys, newsletters, personalised offers and promotions, event-related messages, reminders, among others.  It allows you to add visual content to the SMS message and we all know that visuals are vital to online success.  This is due to the fact the human brain understands visual information better: it processes visual information 60,000 times faster than it does text.

SMS can help you learn more about your users

One of the best ways to learn more about your users is through customer surveys. SMS-based surveys enjoy a high conversion, with 31 percent of consumers responding to such invitations, on average within five minutes.

This means that people are more likely to respond to your SMS than open your email. The high engagement and conversion rates of SMS make it the perfect medium to run short surveys and gain more customer insights.  Also, if you run your promotions on multiple channels, you can track which customers engage more on email or SMS. You can leverage this information later and communicate with them on their preferred channel.

SMS helps you improve user experience (UX)

As we conduct most of our daily tasks and interactions online, it has become critical to provide a seamless experience to users.

And users expect you to provide them with such experience. For example, 46% of people said that they wouldn’t purchase from a brand again if they had an interruptive mobile experience.

In contrast, nearly 9 in 10 smartphone owners who had a helpful and relevant mobile experience would purchase from that brand again. I believe this makes the case for UX.

As SMS provides an interactive and personalised experience, it also inevitably improves the user experience. In fact, the ultimate user experience starts with personalisation. Having said that, the more you know about your customers, the more likely you are to provide them with a better experience. So, SMS can help you improve user experience which will also have a positive impact on your bottom line.