SMS marketing goes by other names like mobile marketing and text message marketing, but the common definition are the efforts made to market via mobile devices. Mobile marketing is here to stay for a market that only continues to grow, with people accessing mobile web more than any other way. We’d like to present to you some more information about why to sms market at all, and why that is important.

Consumers Eat It Up

There’s a reason that people are so attuned to mobile marketing, and why that works so well for marketers. There’s four big reasons here:

  1. It’s totally interactive

    The whole point of marketing today is the ability to have real time conversations with prospects, existing customers, and future venture partners. This human element in a world full of banner ads, and pop-ups means the world to people. They’ve learned to turn off all the obvious and annoying ads, but not when it is an SMS message – the one thing not designated to “ignore”.

  2. Personalized

    People expect to be spoken to personally and text messaging is very personal, and it contacts them in an intimate way wherever they might be. It also allows people convenience, which feels good and builds trust. SMS marketing is a relationship with that consumer in a direct and personal fashion.

  3. Fast

    SMS is received and sent very quickly, which means that it is the only real way to keep pace with a fast-forward world; something else your consumers have come to accept. If you cannot move at their pace you may as well be standing still. This is another reason why text messages are not ignored, and given priority.

  4. Tracking

    The great part for a marketer is that texts can be tracked to see who responds by opting in for instance, and can help to generate a list of active buyers. The high open-rate ensures that people will be opening them more often than not.

What It Means To “Mobile Market”

SMS has proven itself to be a “must-have” in any marketing campaign offering a very inexpensive way that is effective, to target and engage with prospects. The open rate and response rate is through the roof, and it’s so easy to do.

Permission Only

Mobile marketing is permission based, so there’s no more question about it being unsolicited. The user has to opt in to get messages, which is the foundation for trust between a consumer and the marketer. It ensures that the consumer actually wants to be messaged at all.

Massive Open Rate

SMS marketing has a very high open rate at over 90%, with email trailing so far behind at 22% to hardly rate a mention. One of the reasons for this is that texts tend to be shorter and more quickly read and dealt with than a lengthy email.

Mobile Friendly?

Businesses have begun on a large scale, to optimize their website and all their outgoing mail to be friendly to the mobile realm, but texts don’t need this. Texts were born to the mobile scene, and were created specifically for mobile. Everyone knows how to send a text message, so it’s global and universally understood.

Not the Past

In the past people used to be more hesitant to give their phone number to people. Not so today, as people are more willing to give their numbers to businesses to get promotions via text. If a discount is present or some other reward, even more people are happy to hand over their numbers.

Things To Include

Your mobile marketing campaign is so easy and attuned to today’s fast-paced world that it can be easy to forget including some important parts to keep people coming back for more. You can include things like mobile coupons for your service or product by texting in a specific keyword. People love value in their messages and are more likely to respond. Another thing to offer people is a contest. People are competitive creatures by nature, and ensures people text in a keyword in a hope to win. Every number who responds – goes to an ever growing list. You should also consider things like voting and trivia, which prompts the user to respond as well. You can also reasonably extract rough demographics using this method.

text-statistics

Text Messaging Statistics

Existing businesses sometimes have a hard time making the mobile marketing leap and wonder if they even need to bother. If business is doing great via email marketing, direct marketing, and all other ways except mobile, why try something new? Profit. That is the reason to expand to mobile marketing, because many major Fortune 500 companies as well as global leaders are using some form of SMS marketing with great success. It’s the wave of the future as people become independently, and increasingly online via mobile. There are some big statistics to put weight behind this as well.

For instance:

    • Texting is the most used app on a smartphone – 97% of Americans use it at minimum once a day.⑴
    • Across the entire world, people send 8.3 trillion text messages just this year alone. Just think – 23 billion every day, getting opened and given priority. To break that down further, that’s 16 million messages every minute.⑵
    • Text messaging has a 98% open rate, whereas email has a 20% open rate and declining thanks to ever smarter spam filters.⑶
    • Text messaging also has a higher response rating, likely thanks to the higher open rating in the first place. Text messaging has a 45% response rate compared to emails 6% response rate.⑷
    • All text messages are read on average in under five seconds. That means short, quick messages are perfect. 90% of these are read completely in under 3 minutes.⑸
    • 96% of all smartphone users use text.⑹
    • Millennials on average, send out an average of 67 texts every day.⑺
    • 55% of people who send over 50 texts a day say they’d prefer to get a text instead of a phone call.⑻

For Business

    • 80% of all people are using texting for business.⑼
    • 1/3 of all business professionals admit they cannot go more than ten minutes without responding to a text message.⑽
    • Of the 25% of marketers using SMS marketing, over 65% of them report their SMS marketing campaigns as “very effective”.⑾
    • 75% of people want to have offers sent to them via SMS.⑿
    • 77% of people who text between the ages of 18-34 have a better perception of a business that offers text capability.
    • 64% of all consumers will also have a better perception of a business which offers texting as a communication alternative.

It’s clear that SMS marketing is still in its infancy, but that this newest addition to marketing is flourishing in a big way. It’s important, as a savvy marketing professional to stay on top of the latest and greatest additions, so it’s an exciting time to be part of SMS marketing. If you enjoyed this post and want to continue to receive valuable information, tips, gifts and more subscribe to our newsletter below.

Resources:

⑴ http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/04/01/us-smartphone-use-in-2015/
⑵ http://www.portioresearch.com/en/blog/2013/17-incredible-facts-about-mobile-messaging-that-you-should-know.aspx
⑶ http://mobilemarketingwatch.com/sms-marketing-wallops-email-with-98-open-rate-and-only-1-spam-43866/
⑷ https://www.marketingtechblog.com/text-messaging/
⑸ http://connectmogul.com/2013/03/texting-statistics/
⑹ http://duocallcommunications.wordpress.com/2013/09/19/sms-marketing-statistics/
⑺ http://www.businessinsider.com/chart-of-the-day-number-of-texts-sent-2013-3
⑻ http://www.pewinternet.org/2011/09/19/americans-and-text-messaging/
⑼ http://www.eweek.com/small-business/businesses-texting-grows-more-widespread.html
⑽ http://www.eweek.com/small-business/businesses-texting-grows-more-widespread.html
⑾ http://www.exacttarget.com/blog/we-surveyed-5000-marketers-heres-what-they-said-about-marketing-in-2015/
⑿ http://digitalmarketingmagazine.co.uk/mobile-digital-marketing/7-key-statistics-for-sms-marketing/558