SMS marketing is a marketing channel, much like email marketing, that allows businesses to message customers with marketing messages through SMS, or more commonly known, text messaging. These marketing messages can vary from promotional messages, product launches, new lines, sales, offers and more.
MS marketing is the perfect modern way to communicate with your customers. In this modern fast paced world, people want to communicate in a way that suits them, a nice quick, convenient way that fits with their lifestyle. And that is exactly why SMS marketing is now so popular amongst customers and businesses.
It’s quick, easy and convenient for businesses too. They can send out large bulk SMS messages all at once in the click of a button. They can then track who clicked their links and see who has unsubscribed from their messages. Statistics show that 98% of all text messages get read and 95% of all texts are read within 3 minutes.
Which means businesses love SMS marketing because they can virtually guarantee that their messages will get read instantly!
Uses of SMS Marketing for Businesses
There are lots of ways businesses are using SMS marketing, whether that be through an SMS API or an online SMS Web Platform.
- A new product or service
- Sale or offers
- Notifications
- Delivery updates
- Appointment reminders
- Important news
- Customer Service Support
Basically SMS marketing can help businesses with anything and everything.
Things to Consider to Make your SMS Marketing Successful
- Opening line: Go with something short and sweet and attention grabbing.
- Content/message length: Keep it short and sweet and use words and phrases like hurry, quick, offer ends soon to add some emergency to your message.
- Tell them who you are: Make sure you say who you are and set your Sender ID to your business name.
- Send an offer: Send an enticing deal or offer and be sure to let them know how to claim and purchase.
- Include a website link: Let them click and go straight to your website
- Make sure it’s relevant: Make sure you are sending the message to your customers who might be interested. Segment your customer database, men, women etc. So you are sending relevant messages.
- Time of your message: Make sure you are sending the message at an appropriate time so people can respond.
Who can benefit from using SMS marketing services?
Text messages can be a great addition to your digital marketing efforts regardless of what business type you have. They serve the unique function of communicating very urgent information in a highly reliable way.
But, there are certain businesses that cannot live without SMS in their marketing strategy:
- E-commerce stores: Whether you’re sending a promotional campaigns, or order/shipping confirmations, SMS is a great tool for e-commerce stores.
- Travel companies: SMS is essential to travel companies because customers need real-time information. This includes flight time updates, gate changes, cancellations, weather alerts, and many more. With SMS you are able to tell customers exactly what they need to know, without having to worry about if they will see it in time.
- Service businesses that require appointments: Make sure that your clients never miss another appointment by sending them SMS reminders. This will save you tons of time and money wasted on no-shows and late appointments.
- Large organizations with 100+ employees: Internal communication is important, but it’s hard to communicate with every employee in a large company. For urgent information, email is too slow. Using SMS for your internal communication is the best way to ensure that every employee gets the information you want to send them at the right time.
How does SMS marketing work?
SMS marketing messages are sent from “short codes,” as opposed to full telephone numbers. These short codes are typically 5-6 digits, and can be associated with one sender, or shared across multiple senders.
Many countries (including the Nigeria) do not allow sender information to be altered. This means your message will appear as a text message from whatever short code your provider used (not from your business). That is why it’s important to include your company’s name in the message. You can find out more about SMS short codes here.