5 Benefits of SMS Marketing

⏱ Reading Time: 7 minutes

Did you know that the first ever message was sent in 1992 which read ‘’Merry Christmas’’? Fast forward 28 years, Short Message Service (SMS) marketing, also known as Text marketing, is one of the easiest and most common ways of communication. Even though it was mostly used for personal conversations, with the increase of smartphones, businesses seized the opportunity to reach their customers.

🚀Read: Omnichannel Guide for Digitally Advanced Brands🚀

This is called SMS marketing, and it is still extremely popular for numerous reasons. You can use it to increase brand awareness, generate sales or boost engagement. But before digging into the benefits of SMS marketing, let’s explain how it functions today.

Is SMS Marketing Effective in the Modern Age?

Yes. It’s true that smartphones bring a different kind of messaging service, but the greatest advantage of SMS is that it doesn’t require an internet connection. 57.3% of the entire world’s population has internet access, which is why a messaging service that doesn’t rely on it comes in quite handy.

One of the most extensive studies to date found that nearly 60% of SMS messages received a response within the first 15 minutes, which puts this type of marketing at the forefront. Data was gathered from 1,500 networks, across 42 mobile operating systems from various countries. Also, 9 out of 10 people choose messages as a way to keep themselves informed about business communication.

Still not convinced? According to Deloitte’s research, 8% of the world’s population has gone to purchase in-store after receiving promotional offers on their phone. 29% of the target audience respond to messages and 47% of the audience who responded go further to make a purchase.

No wonder businesses have been trying to tap into this jewel, as it is an almost certain way they will reach their target audience, and in record time. Consistently, studies have found SMS – whether sent between individuals or via bulk SMS – are almost guaranteed to be read. Knowing that SMS messages will actually be read is massively advantageous, and the data simply back it up.

If we compare SMS to Email marketing, the results are even more astonishing! Product marketing manager at Adobe, Mickael Bentz, notes that: “Email open rates are great at 20-30 percent. But according to a Dynmark report, SMS blows that away at 98 percent open rate! In fact, 90 percent are read within 3 seconds.”

SMS marketing is a great way for businesses to reach out to their customers and explore new target audiences. The benefits obtained through SMS marketing are many and makes it the choice of communication for every business.

Picture 1. Potential customer to be reached via SMS marketing

Why SMS Marketing?

In 2020 more than 5 billion people worldwide owned a cell phone. Moreover, research by Dscout found that an average user touches their phone about 2,617 times per day. Funnily enough, the research showed that participants checked their phones at least once between midnight and 5 am. Not that you would send them a message at that hour, but still only goes to show that consumers are always within seconds from their phones.

It’s not all black or white, the gray area in this sense is the fact that a lot of times we check our phones simply out of force of habit. According to research from Nottingham Trent University, 55 percent of use consisted of short bursts of less than 30 seconds of activity, which suggests a sort of habitual behavior for many users.

This only proves that the best medium to reach a customer as a business, really is through their phones. Regardless of who your perfect buyer persona is, chances are they’re holding a cell phone in their hand.

The benefits of SMS marketing, in particular, are primarily that the messages are being read and engaged with. As a marketer, you need to set KPIs to gauge the success of your marketing efforts. How can you really measure the engagement of a banner on the highway, and how can you create more engagement with your online banner ads? With so much media fighting for a person’s attention, there’s no guarantee all the resources, time and effort that goes into creating, say, a slick, beautiful design will pay off. Banner blindness is more common than ever, people skip ads, close windows and ignore emails all the time.

That’s where SHORT Message Service comes in. Whether it’s individual or marketing material, keeping it short and simple makes it ideal for both businesses and customers eliminating all the pains mentioned before.

For businesses, it means simplifying a message, refining what must be conveyed and knowing there’s a high chance people will read the message. The constraints of SMS are not limitations but guarantee they’ll be read. Before customers even have time to decide whether to delete or keep an SMS, they’ve already consumed its content!

Picture 2. When do people touch their phones during the day

5 Benefits of SMS Marketing to Marketers

Now that we’ve convinced you that this is an effective way to reach your customers, here are five benefits of SMS marketing that will help strengthen your business and achieve all your customers!

1.High open rates

98% of all SMS are opened. This makes it the most successful medium to reach your customers, compared to Email marketing, phone calls, or online banners. Email and phone calls also have a higher rate of spamming when compared to messages which are relatively very low.

2.High conversion rate

Though with the high usage of messaging via apps, SMS still witnesses a high conversion rate. This could be due to the feeling of a personal approach, rather than customers reading an ad that could be aimed at anyone. This way he knows it’s meant for him and is more inclined to understand what you have to say. People are more motivated to visit your business and take action on promotions, offers shared by companies through SMS than via any other marketing platform.

Related: How to Turn Visitors into Buyers?

3.Inexpensive

Especially compared to other marketing options out there, Cloud messaging platforms make SMS marketing a very cost-effective option. Cloud telephony providers offer Bulk SMS options which allow businesses to reach out to thousands of customers in a concise period. You can expect to pay somewhere between $50 and $500 per month depending on your text volume, number of keywords, and desired features.

4.Wide Reach

Reach is undoubtedly one of the most significant benefits for businesses to choose this platform to reach customers. With the increase in usage of smartphones, Statista reports that in 2018, 52.2% of all online traffic was generated through mobile phones worldwide when compared to 2017 which makes SMS marketing the choice of communication for many businesses.

Receiving an SMS does not require internet connectivity, just a working phone. With the heightened usage of phones, SMS marketing is nothing less of a goldmine. Businesses can utilize the opportunity to reach customers right on their fingertips, which gives them the advantage of reaching a broader target audience.

5.Instant delivery

Nowadays, due to roaming agreements and technological advancement, sending a message or making a phone call anywhere in the world is done without any problems. A right Cloud telephony provider has secure network operator connections across the globe. This network-operator relation can be of great use when businesses want to come in contact with their target audience instantly.

SMS Marketing – Final Thoughts

Short Message Service Marketing may be the first marketing opportunity that came with the invention of the cell phone, but it’s certainly still very relevant for businesses.

Scratching the surface one might say there are two significant benefits to SMS marketing: first, the constraints of SMS force the messages to be short and, second, connectivity to the internet is not a requirement. Almost all other forms of media have no constraint on their content, but require people to be online to receive it, and tend to be lost due to banner blindness.

If we dig a little deeper, when compared to other forms of marketing like Billboards, television ads, mobile ads or via magazines, SMS marketing is budget-friendlier along with a broader audience reach.

The most significant advantage is in instant delivery of messages and returns, instant customer engagement. Even though SMS seems like a blast from the past, the relevance of it prevails to this day. It is a fast-paced world, and by using Short Message Service marketing you, as a business, can reach, engage, and help your customers in a matter of seconds.