Since the internet jumped into our computers as early as the ‘90s, we have seen an explosion in the number of digital contents, all varying for attention of target audience.
It becomes difficult to keep your audience’s attention for long. Let’s face it, it only takes a thumbnail of a funny cat video to snatch audience attention away from a hard-worked YouTube marketing content. The ‘skip video’ button works like magic; and on Facebook, your marketing content can be lost in the stream of contents posted on one’s wall.
Email marketing was the way to go until people just stop caring about mails sent to their inboxes. Average email marketing content opening rate of 35% as of 2019 says it all. And traditional TV advertisements are way too costly for most businesses.
Sending SMS online has become one of the most effective marketing means due to a 98% opening rate, cheap cost and personal nature of the SMS communication method.
There are more mobile phones in circulation than personal computers and TVs
In 2018, over 5 billion people use mobile phones; that number is expected to reach 7 billion in 2020. It might interest you to know that people touch their phones about 2, 617 times per day, illustrating how targeting mobile users could be the most direct method of marketing.
The Ericsson Mobility Report found that 3.6 billion devices in the world are using ‘non-smartphones’. That means that 50% of the world’s mobile devices cannot be reached with online content. With more phones in hand, 70% of mobile marketing activities should be pushed to SMS. More businesses are now turning to SMS as their desired choice of mobile marketing. Coco-cola is an example of big brands doing this, banks also. Why not your business?
More people have access to text messages among other digital contents
The logic is quite simple, you receive SMS whether you’re connected to the internet or not. The chances are there that 9 out of 10 people would see their SMS before they see their emails and therefore it is more likely they open text messages before emails.
Look at it this way: the phone buzzes when a text message arrives, you’re more curious to know what it contains because of the personal nature of text messages; the message is much shorter than an email’s which makes reading it easy.
Talking about the personality of text messages, a girl is more likely to give a guy her social media contact before her phone number. Why? Because phone number-related activities like calls and text messages are more personal or direct than other contact means. We receive bank alerts mostly via SMS. These are why text messages have a 98% open rate. It’s no rocket science.
Direct method of marketing
Online SMS services can reach almost anyone with a mobile phone and are read on average within 90 seconds of being received. Many times emails sent to subscribers end up in their spam folder or trash without been read.
The effectiveness of mobile advertising has also reduced with the rise of ad-blocking technologies which more and more mobile users are installing on their devices to stop automatic ads on apps.
Messaging applications such as WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger are inaccessible in some countries. As stated earlier, if 3.6 billion mobile devices in the world are ‘non-smartphones’, it simply means that nearly 50% of the world’s devices cannot be reached through online ads, social media contents, emails, instant messages or push notifications.
The only way to reach more customers directly is by sending bulk SMS online with the capability of delivering to recipients worldwide no matter where they are. Delivery can be easily tracked using SMSexperience delivery analytics to see reports in real-time whenever text messages are delivered.
SMS has high conversion rates
The interaction with text messages is significantly higher than other marketing tools. With a 45% response rate, it dwarfs the 8% response rate of emails. FunMobility recorded a click-through rate of 36% after moving to a bulk SMS service whilst email click-through rates remain at just 3.4%. SMS marketing can be easily tracked to view click-through rates for every SMS message that you send by utilizing software such as Google analytics.
Boost your other channels
The beautiful thing about SMS marketing is that it can be used to increase recipients’ interaction with your other channels such as email, website and in-store visits. Using a shortened hyperlink is a great way to direct users to your website.
You remind recipients to check their emails on your contents or to follow your social media accounts for “more great contents”. You might be surprised at the result. Just don’t overdo it. SMS is a great method for distributing coupons which can increase in-store visits and purchases.
Take Action
SMS marketing remains a cost-effective tool of directly communicating with recipients and effectively channeling mobile marketing efforts, but the bulk SMS platform you choose to power your SMS marketing campaign all the difference. SMSexperience is highly recommended simply because we take care of the technicalities and strain associated with SMS, helping you focus on running targeted campaigns for effective results.
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