The reasons why you should think about marketing via text messages as an element of your customer communications
As more companies look to reach customers who are mobile SMS is becoming an increasingly important component of successful multi-channel marketing. But, with only a handful of digital marketing firms offering SMS as their primary service their clients may be being left out of communication with their customers, and a higher ROI.
Organizations are mistakenly thinking that mobile marketing requires a large investments in apps. It doesn’t allow for personalized targeted communications and does not have robust analysis that can support the ROI. In reality, access to mobile communication is far more simple than is believed and accessing mobile users (smartphone as well as non-smartphone) is as easy as sending a personalized specific text message. It is possible to create two-way SMS messages between a business and mobile users is vital to creating an image in the homes of the world , as long as privacy for consumers is guaranteed by the legal requirement to opt-in.
In this blog, we’ll review the most important findings from our most recent whitepaper, which we will present in our webinar on the advantages of making use of SMS as part of your marketing mix. We will also discuss the reason SMS should be incorporated into an overall communications strategy and will also look at ways to use it in an integrated strategy to communicate with customers throughout their lifecycle.
1. It’s an immediate, direct channel
SMS is among the fastest channels to use and with a read percentage of 97% within fifteen minutes of delivery and a guarantee that your messages of urgency will be read in a matter of minutes. An impressive 45% of SMS campaigns yield an effective ROI, which can be more than 50 percent by combining it with other well-known channels like email and social media.
2. Shortcodes can be used to make response easier and create your database
Let your customers make the first step by including a keyword or shortcode to printed collateral, ads and advertising boards, as in addition to social media. This will ensure that your customers are soon comfortable with the brand’s logo and keywords and therefore are more likely to engage and react.
3. It is able to support and integrate with other channels.
It is crucial that all channels work in the context of the marketing mix, and SMS is not an exception. SMS is a fantastic stand-alone channel, but it also can be used to complement and enhance other marketing channels like email and social media.
In addition to being great by itself SMS also has the ability to support and enhance other popular media for consumers, like email and social media.
For instance, they could be used to remind users to read an email that a brand sends out for a period of time or even days prior to. Simple follow-up SMS that asks “have been reading our emails?” can help increase open rates for emails by 20-30 percent.
4. Learn details about the customers you serve
SMS is an excellent way to gather feedback from your customers through surveys. Studies show that, on average, 31% of customers will respond to a survey through SMS, with the average response time of users of just five minutes. This means you can achieve great results in a short amount of time.
5. It is possible to increase the engagement of your customers.
Consider SMS marketing as a method to improve the way your brand interacts with its customers throughout the whole customer journey. Companies should be aware of the need to change the types of information they share While customers might appreciate news and updates on upcoming developments in the brand This information should be given via email. In this case, longer and more imaginative messages are more suitable.
Although some marketers believe that texting is intruding however, many customers are used to text the local businesses like dentists, garages , hairdressers or even public services such as the NHS. This is an excellent illustration to show how NHS is engaging its customers with a high-engagement event!
In addition, brands can make use of text messaging to send out quicker, anticipated promotions that are related to sales, like discounts, vouchers promotions, birthday messages.
6. Response data lets you analyze, track and improve
The tracking of important ROI, identifying clients using text messages, and tracking the delivery rate are feasible via SMS. This will expose the reality to the myth that SMS is as a channel that cannot be tracked and bringing it like the possibilities of email for a long time.
Through these analytics companies can design additional targeted campaigns and improve their understanding of their database of mobile customers. It’s not just that they will save money and boost ROI, but by identifying and segmenting out those who are less likely to be contacted to SMS, a business can use SMS to contact those customers via email or any other channel.