Power of Text: SMS marketing flourishes even in digital age - Exchange4Media

Uncategorized Power of Text: SMS marketing flourishes even in digital age – Exchange4Media

admin 26 January, 2022 0 Comments

SMS continues to be the main communication strategy for many sectors like real estate, service, media, healthcare brands, say experts

Even in the age of digital advertising, tapping into SMS-Short Message Service, or simply texting, is considered as the personalized, fastest, and most logical way to interact with consumers. From promotional text for upcoming deals, confirming shipping delivery, follow-up for customer support to scheduling an appointment, SMS is widely being used by many brands in several sectors like Real Estate, Healthcare Industry, Service, Retail, Entertainment Venues, Restaurants & Food Vendors, Media and Education, etc.
Reasons: Firstly, SMS provides brands the opportunity to reach out to customers where they are spending the most time, especially in the pandemic. Secondly, most people usually respond to SMS campaigns quickly compared to a few traditional methods of advertising like emails.
“It takes approximately 90 seconds for someone to answer a text message. Compare that to the 90 minutes it takes, on average, to respond to an email”, writes Steve Weiss, Founder & CEO of MuteSix, a US-based performance marketing agency, in an article published in Forbes early this year. Weiss insists that SMS is the marketing tool of the future.
Despite other innovative communication methods developed over the years, text marketing remained steadfast, proving itself as a valuable and efficient communication channel, marketing experts say. “Businesses are starting to understand the power that text marketing holds in the digital age. The first battle when trying to sell a product or service is to get the customer to hear you out and at least listen to why you think they should part with their money. SMS messages give a huge window of opportunity,” says Tusshar Agarwal, Founder & MD of KYI Solutions that deals in SMS marketing.
Impact on sales
Bulk SMS messaging services allow businesses to reach a large market base within seconds. Be it startups trying to reach potential clients or an established firm trying to expand overseas, bulk messaging allows every kind of business to strategically plan its communication.
Business2Community, another US-based company that deals with content marketing and digital marketing trends, estimates that 99% of text messages are opened compared to 28-33% of emails.
In India, things are different but SMS still has the leverage, leaders involved in SMS marketing say.
The ‘click through rate’ for a text message is said to be 36%, about six times that of an email. Mobile coupons are ten times more likely to be redeemed than their paper counterparts too, says Agarwal. He adds, “It’s one thing being read, it’s quite another getting someone to agree with what you’ve written and follow the course of action you would like. SMS messages need a strong and clear call to action and, if they contain these, they can get a good response.”
SMS boasts a near 14 percent conversion rate, as per an SMS Marketing report 2021 by VFirst which is about two-fold compared to voice messages, email, or Facebook. The study also found that there was a 20 percent increase in the daily commercial SMS traffic in India in the post-pandemic period.
“Seven SMSes per day is ideal”
Due to the personal nature of mobile devices, mobile marketers wield immense power i.e. direct access to a customer’s attention span at all hours of the day. “In order to remain effective in the digital age, marketers have to accept the significant responsibility that comes with such power. This power encompasses everything from content, branding, incentives, channels, and segmentation data,” Agarwal states.
He adds, “No matter how strong a company’s overall marketing strategy is, violating a customer’s personal space with too much content or too many updates results in immediate alienation. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, but the degree to which the data supports this analysis is extremely striking.”
For those averse to reading data, the deep dive reveals optimal mobile messaging frequency to max out around 7-8 messages sent per week by a single user. However, there are risks too. Too many text messages from one brand can be awful for many consumers. Most people unsubscribe from SMS alerts from brands that send them too much over-promotional, boring content, or content that isn’t what they signed up for might cause you to see unsubscribes, experts warn.
New Age SMS Marketing
India has an estimated 761 million smartphone users in India and is estimated to reach 966 million users by 2023. SMS continues to be one of the inexpensive ways to reach your customers.
Artificial Intelligence is now helping brands to offer the right products to the right customers at the right time. This increases return on investment, enhances customer experience and improves the efficiency of resources.
The SMS marketing model’s simplicity also means it’s incredibly cost-efficient. Brands & SMEs are able to take the advantage of SMS Marketing as it’s more economical than print marketing campaigns and other forms of advertising.
Agarwal says, “That’s because it doesn’t rely on the “spray and pray” method like other channels do. When you pay for a television, radio, or print ad, you’re casting a pretty wide net. You might limit your audience by geographical location but you’re still paying for a message that is unlikely to impact the majority of your audience. Consider a television Ad. What percentage of those who view it are actually going to act on it? While these traditional forms of advertising are effective at reaching a larger audience, the success of these efforts is typically lower.”
Of course, money isn’t the only type of cost when it comes to running an ad campaign. For example, in order to reach 1 lakh Target Audience Cost of the Ad campaign comes somewhere around Rs 12,000 to Rs 3.5 lakh depending upon the product.
A successful marketing campaign requires time as well. Again, SMS has an advantage over most other channels. Successful television, radio, and print ads will typically require the help of some third-party professional. The average business owner doesn’t have the know-how to put together those kinds of ads.
SMS, on the other hand, only requires a well-crafted message. Depending on how often you want to text your customers, you can run a successful SMS campaign while only investing an hour or less each week.

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