08 Dec
When we refer to digital marketing, we’re referring to marketing efforts that use the Internet and mobile devices as the main form of communication, such as emails, blogs, social media campaigns, etc.
However, there is one option that isn’t often spoken about. This marketing weapon is highly effective, but sadly, underutilized. We are talking about SMS Marketing.
SMS or text message marketing is a form of communication in which businesses reach out to their customers/members directly on their mobile phones. This enables brands to effectively engage a large spectrum of audiences with minimal resources required.
This article sheds light on why SMS marketing is the next MUST-HAVE to future-proof your business’ marketing efforts. Incorporating SMS marketing via Advocado will enable business owners to drive better results with less effort, especially since they can be programmed and automated.
If you are a business owner looking to engage your customers but have no time to write blogs or design social media posts, this article is for you!
Here's why you must adopt SMS Marketing ASAP
I. Its quick & effective
1. SMS has an open rate of 98%
One huge advantage of using SMS marketing is that it takes next to no time to create and deploy, compared to emails or blogs which require much more effort and time. It only takes about 3-5 minutes to create and send out an SMS, making it perfect for business owners who are always short of time.
With an astonishing open rate of 98%, SMS marketing is more effective than other push marketing channels. For example, emails have an open rate of 22%. Moreover, text messages are generally opened within 90 seconds of delivery, while emails take more than 90 minutes to open. This means that SMS has better click-through and engagement levels than most other marketing channels. This is why SMS marketing is the best-kept secret of many big brands in Singapore.
Source: campaignmonitor.com
2. SMS response rates average about 45%
Not only do they have a high open rate, but text messages also have a significantly high response rate. The response rate of text messages is 45% as compared to emails which only have an average response rate of 6%.
Source: campaignmonitor.com
3. Consumers are 4.5X more likely to reply to text messages than emails.
In other words, SMS messaging has been proven to provide the best ROI among all marketing initiatives as they are more direct. Your consumers are being exposed to an overwhelming amount of content each day, it’s becoming extremely difficult to gain the attention of the people you intend to target. SMS bypasses this challenge by dropping directly into a person’s phone.
Source: Gartner
4. 59% of consumers respond to texts within five minutes.
Clearly, SMS is the fastest method to reach your target audience. Unlike EDMs where brands keep waiting and waiting after sending the emails, SMS marketing can get you instant responses and revenue within minutes. 53.75% of business owners and marketers believe “fast delivery” is the biggest consumer benefit of text marketing. What’s more, even if a consumer does not directly respond to your text message, a notification will be there.
Source: marketerhire.com
II. Better reception by consumers
5. 75% of clients want to receive offers via SMS
Another reason why you should start adopting text messages as a marketing strategy is because it’s the preferred method by the people receiving them, a.k.a your consumers and prospects. According to techjury.net, as high as 75% of your customers would like to receive promotional messages from you via SMS compared to SMS or push applications by apps.
Source: techjury.net
6. 82% of consumers claim to read every text they get
Moveover, according to statistics by dexatel.com, 82% of consumers claim to read every text message they get, as they are accustomed to receiving an SMS whenever there is an important notification or update. No other digital channel, be it emails, blogs or social media are able to have this level of click-through and engagement.
Click here to explore more about SMS Marketing Automation for your business.
Source: dexatel.com
7. 36% of SMS marketing recipients click on links in SMS messages.
The average click-through rate of a text message is 36%, which is relatively high compared to other marketing efforts. This means that if you have a call-to-action such as “Be a Member Now”, “Buy Now” etc. that leads to a landing page or a membership subscription page, there is a high likelihood that they will click on the link to read more or purchase the offer.
Just as a comparison, the typical Click-Through Rate of an Email campaign, a good CTR is considered to be around 2-4%.
Source: dexatel.com
8. 70% of consumers think that marketers can capture their attention by using SMS.
Did you know that the average office worker receives around 121 emails every workday? This means that it’s highly likely that your email might be drowned out by the sheer number of emails in the inboxes.
Furthermore, more than 50% of emails land in the spam folder, especially if they are not in your consumers’ contact list. The question is, what’s the most efficient way to engage your customers? Again, text messages are the answer. In fact, 70% of consumers feel that when they receive a text message, it grabs their attention and they will likely respond to it.
Source: https://bloggingwizard.com/
III. Opportunities for SMEs
9. Only 39% businesses use SMS to engage their customers.
Based on the statistics shared above, it should already be apparent why SMS messaging should be part of your marketing arsenal (if it isn’t already). As SME owners, having a cost-efficient tool that is effective will enable you to stand out from your competitors. In fact, only 39% of businesses use SMS to engage their customers. This shows how underutilized SMS still is today, which opens up many opportunities for businesses that do.
Also, SMS also generates high return of investment, which is important to measure the effectiveness of marketing tools. Based on Advocado’s personal experience of serving more than 100 F&B brands, the ROI for Singapore’s F&B industry can go to a whopping 200%!
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, more and more businesses are turning to SMS marketing thanks to its flexibility and ease of use. Business owners need not think about printing flyers or vouchers, as everything can be done via the phone within minutes, which is super convenient and time-efficient. Most importantly, SMS enables business owners to engage their audiences with zero geographical barriers, which physical marketing collaterals will not be able to replicate.
source: slicktext.com
IV. SMS Marketing : The Secret Sauce for Boosting Revenue
10. 96% of marketers using text messages said it helped them drive revenue.
Even in Singapore, SMS marketing is still very underutlilized by Singaporean merchants, which serves as a massive opportunity for early adopters of this technology. Advocado makes SMS marketing easily accessible for its merchants, and what’s more, they can be automated so that you can just set and forget which helps you save time and lets you focus on your business!
Through our work in Singapore’s F&B and retail space, SMS marketing has proven time and again that it is indeed the proven channel to engage your customers more effectively. Some of the other digital channels such as emails, blogs, social media posts require more time and resources to implement and provides minimum ROI – essentially meaning that the gains doesn’t compensate the effort.
Source: https://99firms.com/
Don't wait to start SMS Marketing!
Want to start implementing SMS messaging into your next marketing campaign? Speak to our friendly Loyalty Experts now to understand more about implementing automated SMS marketing for your business.
