[dropcap]W[/dropcap]e often tend to give less importance to old marketing methods as new methods appear to be more remunerative. However, if you look at SMS marketing, despite being quite old, it is now even more important than before. With mobile devices spreading like wildfire, not having an SMS marketing campaign as part of the digital marketing package could turn out quite a foolish decision. To remain competitive, you must make use of every marketing channel that could pay back well. In this regard, SMS marketing is perhaps a few steps ahead of some other marketing channels. SMS marketing can provide increased ROI, which is the bottom line for business performance. SMS marketing is highly successful as would be evident from the double-digit growth of B2C messaging.
This is the age of smartphones and tablets and marketers have to exploit it to the maximum for connecting closely with customers and ensuring higher conversions that bring in revenue. Despite being an old technology that originated more than two decades ago, SMS is by far the most effective means of communicating with consumers, a bigger section of which are quite comfortable with it. To understand how effective SMS communication can be, have a look at some fascinating statistics. Studies have revealed that unlike email marketing where getting messages delivered to the inbox of recipients is often quite challenging, SMS messages land safely into the mobile devices. Almost 98% of message recipients open SMS messages within a minute and are even ready to respond to it. It is a very cost-effective method of communicating with consumers that has bright marketing prospects. This makes it a great channel for emergency or real-time updates. For example, if something happens in your community that you need to know quickly, or it can be used as a school notification app.
SMS marketing works in tandem with mobile marketing
SMS marketing has close links to mobile marketing, and it could be a subset of the latter. When you formulate a mobile marketing strategy, you have to include SMS marketing into it. To succeed in mobile marketing, you cannot afford to ignore SMS marketing. On the other hand, you can make use of the data derived from mobile marketing that could give an advantage in creating a more impressive and effective SMS marketing strategy based on business texting. Keep reading to know why you must consider SMS marketing as a major constituent of your mobile marketing strategy that also uses websites, mobile apps, and social media.
Assured reading and engagement
Engaging consumers is a challenging task for marketers, but it becomes very easy with SMS marketing. Whether you are building your brand, promoting your products or just keeping in touch with consumers to keep them in good humor, SMS marketing can be very effective. Since consumers would read the messages in the majority of instances, the power of the text would decide the engagement level. Therefore, it is essential to pay attention to creating the right kind of messages that can evoke the right response from consumers and create engagement. Knowing your consumers is critical to creating the right messages. You have to rely on data analysis for understanding the minds of the audience and have a good idea about their buying behavior.
Make use of mobile analytics
How your consumers behave when using the mobile device for online buying is something that you must understand well to frame your SMS marketing strategy. Gather data from mobile devices that provide insights into consumer behavior and analyze it correctly to figure out their tastes, likes, dislikes and even solutions that they are looking for. The information is beneficial for providing consumers with the right kind of messaging by addressing their points of interest. You have to know what would be the best way of engaging with consumers and help to create a personalized experience for each consumer that goes a long way in providing good marketing returns.
Gauge the mobile usage pattern
Your target of SMS marketing is to engage with consumers during their purchase journey for which you must know how they use the devices. Once you know about the mobile device usage pattern of consumers, it would be easy to identify the points of interaction with them in the course of their journey. Moreover, by knowing how they use the devices, you could decide whether to rely only on SMS marketing only or building an app would be a better option.
Get the user’s consent for communicating
You just cannot send text messages to users by just assuming that they would welcome it. First, you must obtain their consent that they are willing to communicate with you and then you can include the name in the messaging list. Unless users opt-in for your messages and or notifications, you cannot be in touch with them as it would be something similar to sending spam emails. This is part of the best practices in mobile marketing, and you have to adhere to it.
Consumers are open to mobile messaging
Mobile messaging is a sure way of reaching out to consumers because it does not depend on the internet or any app for delivering the message. The messages reach the mobile devices by riding on the back of the telephonic services. Interestingly, studies have shown that consumers are eager to interact with brands by using mobile messaging services. Proper use of SMS marketing could bring consumers closer to businesses with the higher promise of conversion and sales. SMS messaging can reach out to every mobile user with certainty and is unfailing in establishing a secure connection with consumers that lead to better relationships and more sales.
Engage in two way messaging
Select a robust messaging platform for launching an effective SMS campaign. When choosing the platform, ensure that you can engage in two way communication that helps to gauge the response of consumers and make them act in the way you want. Moreover, the platform of communication has to be scalable and customizable so that it becomes easy to use it for your changing marketing needs.
Creating an intense and personalized experience through SMS messaging can give good marketing rewards. Knowing how to put the building blocks in place can do the trick.
