In 2020 businesses have more marketing channel choices than ever before. It’s important to select the right form of communication for your particular marketing need. Traditional methods like bulk mail, printed material and TV advertising are costly, while email is prone to issues with filtering and spam blocking.
SMS or online texting has emerged as a predominant marketing platform due to its near-instant delivery and high read rates. It’s now commonly recognized that it takes 90 seconds for the average person to respond to a text message, compared 90 minutes to respond to an email. Furthermore, the response rate to text messages is approximately 45%, compared to just 8% for email. The fact that more than 90% of consumers have their phone within reach 24/7 makes text-based marketing an ideal choice.
Combining SMS marketing with email or web sites can also be a smart strategy. A short text message can contain a hyperlink to a website, or notify someone that an email with more information and content is on its way. Consumers are more-likely to open such and email, or visit a web site when introduced via text message. Introductory texts can be easily delivered using tools such as bulk text messaging or SMS APIs.
SMS continues to grow. It’s estimated that about 5.2 billion people use a mobile phone of some form in 2020. Furthermore, people are spending more time on their phones, which directly translates to more opportunities to read marketing messages.
As more companies turn to SMS as a preferred form of marketing, it’s important to do it right. Message volume, content and presentation are critical. People can be easily irritated by an overabundance of texts from the same source, abrasive messages containing false or misleading content, or annoyances like all-caps or misspellings. Simply blasting mass text messages to the same numbers multiple times a day is a poor strategy, which will likely result in a lot of STOP responses. So, it’s important consider message volume and the tone and quality of your content. Here are some common methods used to send text messages for marketing:
- Bulk Texting. Mobile numbers and messages can be uploaded from an Excel worksheet or CSV file, then sent in a single operation to multiple mobile devices. You have the option of sending a personalized message to each number, or simply send the same message to all numbers.
- Email to SMS Gateway. For anyone familiar with email-based marketing, email-to-SMS is the same concept, but instead of sending an email to an email address, your email is sent to a mobile number@textport.com. The email message is converted to a text message and delivered to the mobile device.
- SMS API. For businesses with access to software development resources and SMS API (Application Programming Interface) is the best way to integrate a text messaging platform directly into your own software or CRM platform.
In summary, SMS has quickly become established as a highly-effective, economical marketing tool. Mobile use has reached an all-time high, and continues to grow. SMS marketing platforms have become popular tools for sending and managing SMS marketing messages. SMS messaging generates high read and click-through rates which make it preferable over other channels of business communication.
