SMS marketing is the sending of promotional SMS messages. Through SMS, the company can inform the audience about new products or services, promotions, special offers and inform the customer about actions, such as making an appointment or placing an order. SMS marketing has been used for two decades, but despite the development of other promotion channels, this method of advertising is still effective and relevant.
Unlike many other types of advertising, the launch of SMS marketing does not require any special knowledge. There are special SMS services that help to launch promotions easily. Sometimes this service is provided by mobile operators themselves, which makes the launch of the mailing even easier — the company will advise you on all matters. From you, first of all, it is required to gather a base of contacts for the mailing. In order for the mailing to be legitimate, it is important to get consent from the customers to use the number, for example, when placing an order with a customer.
SMS marketing is actively used by companies and there are a number of reasons for this. Advantages of SMS marketing include:
- high reach — most people have a phone they use all the time, and it's the easiest way to reach them;
- high open rate — people read almost all of the SMS they receive, so your message is unlikely to go unnoticed;
- conciseness — the format of SMS implies short messages and this allows people to get the whole essence of your offer at once;
- they do not need the internet — to receive SMS you only need a mobile connection, which is now available almost everywhere in the world;
- possibility of automation — SMS marketing can be used in conjunction with accounting systems such as CRM, and send trigger messages to customers which are automatically generated after certain actions are performed;
- SMS messages always reach their destination — even if the customer is disconnected or his phone is switched off, SMS will reach its destination when the subscriber is reachable.
SMS marketing cannot be called an ideal promotional tool. It, like other advertising methods, has problems. The disadvantages of SMS marketing:
- only text is used — modern marketing is usually based on visual content and mass use of banners, which cannot be done in SMS format;
- price — the cost of SMS messages may be higher than the email analog, so you must carefully choose a mailing service and compare the effectiveness of tools;
- limited text size — a company can not always fit your talking points in one SMS, and increasing the size of the text will lead to a significant increase in price;
- lack of analytics — it's quite difficult to track the effectiveness of SMS mailing because it doesn't involve the tools that are available, for example, in web analytics.
