Benefits and use cases of SMS marketing

Introduction

Have you considered the value of SMS marketing for your business? Maybe you’ve already started using SMS but aren’t having the expected results? Are you simply looking to maximise the return on investment (ROI) you are seeing from your marketing efforts?

In this blog, we will cover why SMS marketing used as part of a broader unified communications strategy, while often overlooked, should be considered a key outbound tool in the arsenal of many businesses.

Benefits of SMS marketing

Immediate delivery: One of the biggest benefits of SMS marketing is the ability to immediately reach a large audience. The immediacy of text messages ensures they are usually read within minutes of receipt, making SMS an effective real-time communication channel. They can also be sent quickly and easily to many people at once using bulk SMS tools.

Preferred by customers: Evidence shows that many customers are interested in receiving SMS messages. SMS marketing offers an incredible 98% open rate, surpassing other marketing channels like email (with an average open rate of around 20%), with 35% of consumers checking their notifications within one minute of receiving a notification.

Easy to personalise: SMS marketing allows you to personalise messages for each recipient. This personal touch increases the chance of your SMS messages being opened and interacted with. Surveys show that 91% of consumers would sign up for texts from a business, with 61% desiring the ability to text a business back, so through SMS, your chances of customer engagement are high.

Globally accessible: With almost 7 billion global smartphone users, SMS marketing has widespread accessibility. Unlike other digital marketing channels, SMS doesn't rely on an internet connection for the recipient, making it effective in reaching customers in areas with limited internet access or on the move, with messages being received from wherever your customer is at that moment.

Strategically customisable: SMS marketing allows you to engage with customers based on their known preferences, such as how they prefer to be contacted, which channels of communications they prefer to receive, and how often you can contact them. The more you adapt your strategy to these preferences, the more positive their experience with your brand will be.

Supports GDPR compliance: Privacy is a top concern for consumers, and brands have struggled to adapt to new limitations on data sharing between applications and platforms. SMS marketing offers a valuable opportunity to gather ‘zero-party’ data, which means data that the customer has directly and intentionally shared with your business in order for you to communicate with them.

Underutilised by competitors: Even though almost all consumers have a smartphone that they take everywhere, and that they can use to browse your website, SMS marketing is still an underutilised channel when compared to email and phone. 70% of shoppers are subscribed to texts from brands, but only 55% of brands text customers.

Cost-effective: SMS campaigns are more inexpensive than traditional forms of marketing and advertising including email, phone, and digital ad spend. On top of this, nearly all marketers using text messages for business say that it helps them drive revenue, with around 60% even reporting increased revenue generation.

Use cases for SMS marketing

Thanks to all the benefits listed above, SMS marketing offers a vast range of use cases that can be met with a simple, compact, 160-character message.

Here are just a few of the ways businesses can use it:

• Polls & surveys that can obtain instant feedback on customer satisfaction
• Flash sales or promotions make use of the immediacy of SMS
• Use giveaways to generate communications ‘opt-in’ from your potential customer base
• Nurture campaigns that rely on a series of automated SMS messages
• Announce product launches instantly to your opted in customers
• Facilitate two-way conversations for purchase decisions or support
• Automated reminders, confirmations, or cancellations for upcoming appointments
• Providing delivery or shipping tracking updates
• Promotions such as exclusive codes, gifts, discounts, and access.
• Abandoned cart reminders for customers yet to complete a purchase
• Sending birthday messages or other greetings to contacts or customers

These are just some of our ideas, but there is a constantly evolving list of innovative ways businesses are using SMS to facilitate their business requirements

How to incorporate SMS

The most important way to utilise SMS is to ensure you are utilising the correct tools to distribute your preferred messaging effectively, as well as ensuring your adhere to best practices for those campaigns or messages.

Remember, for a successful SMS marketing campaign, continuous testing and optimisation of your messaging will be essential. You should ensure that you’re tracking your SMS marketing ROI and using the insights gained to refine your strategy, maximise the effectiveness of your campaigns, and achieve your desired results.

CallSwitch One enables you to send bulk SMS messages to up to 20,000 simultaneous recipients from within the customer dashboard, as well as allowing 2-way conversations that can be managed from within our desktop or mobile applications.

Furthermore, as this SMS feature is incorporated within a broader, unified communications solution, it will be possible to utilise other channels to reach and engage with your audience from a single pane of glass, with other integrations including those with a range of CRMs designed to support sales and marketing functions.

Lastly, if CallSwitch One doesn’t meet your needs out-the-box, it is also possible to use our API to incorporate SMS into your existing applications or services. In this way you can send and receive text messages globally, reaching a vast audience and deliver SMS campaigns at scale using your preferred platform.

To learn more about how CallSwitch One can help your business incorporate SMS marketing into your communications strategy, contact us today.