SMS marketing is probably the most popular aspect of mobile marketing and although the concept seems to be a no-brainer, SMS marketers often find its correct execution to be fairly difficult to accomplish. It appears simple enough on paper – send out text messages to prospects to improve sales but as a private individual doesn’t the whole idea strike you as rather intrusive? When is it appropriate to implement this tool as a part of your inbound marketing campaign?
Taking the right approach to SMS Marketing
Approximately 98 percent of marketing messages sent via SMS marketing are opened and more than 90 percent of them are opened in less than 3 minutes. This makes short messaging service extremely valuable as a marketing tool but at the same time, it shows how important it is to get it done right. As a mobile marketing tool, you are dealing with a medium that people find important in their daily lives. After all, do you want your prospects to remember your business as one that spammed their mobile devices with useless and irrelevant messages?
What does SMS marketing have to offer you?
SMS marketers think of SMS as a low cost approach to marketing but mobile marketers also need to consider the fact that it may cost prospects money when they receive your text messages. Hence it is important for mobile marketers to use SMS as a specific tool via an opt-in program and ensure that your messages are relevant and offers value to its recipients. What are some of the great things SMS has to offer your business as a marketing tool and how should one go about doing it?
Actively engage and communicate with customers – Just as it is with any other marketing solution, SMS marketing is only effective if you are dealing with people that are interested in the products or services that you offer and would like to hear from you. Thus it makes perfect sense to use short messaging service, as a means to actively communicate and engage prospects which you’ve determined to be truly interested in what your business has to offer. It can for instance be used as a mobile marketing solution to identify and offer rewards and incentives to loyal customers that bring you repeat business. Marketing or promoting your product or service can be done by other more appropriate web marketing channels (social media and business website). SMS marketers can use it to interact and communicate with interested customers and actually give them something that they need and want.
Service Reminders and Alerts – Customer service and marketing is something that goes hand in hand and mobile marketers will find that there is a huge opportunity behind SMS to strengthen customer service and hopefully yield more sales. Among the primary benefits of SMS marketing is that its an engaging and real-time mode of communication – perfect for issuing SMS receipts and requesting ratings for customer experience. Mobile marketing works because it is interactive in nature and when done right, can drive a lot of value making the life of customers a lot easier. Think about it – instead of having to make phone calls, service or product updates, receipts and having to log on to websites or send emails to provide feedback, all these can be arranged by exchanging a couple of text messages.
Generating Sales – The value of short messaging services as a marketing tool isn’t at all limited to existing clients. For instance, SMS marketers can go for location-based SMS campaigns. Mobile marketers often find that it takes only a little nudge for local prospects to actually make a purchase when provided with time-sensitive information about products or services that they may be looking for. SMS marketers can launch a social media marketing campaign to entice online leads to make use of an opt-in app on their mobile devices for discounts and offers in their local area.
The key to successful SMS marketing is to effectively and correctly seek the permission of prospects who are not only looking to opt in and check out your offers but also would like to actually be marketed to via text messages. Indeed this mobile marketing solution can prove to be extremely effective in furthering business goals and one that must be respected as a means of communication in order to maintain a stellar and likeable reputation among prospects!
