One of the most powerful marketing strategies that have been exploding in growth lately is SMS marketing.
SMS or text message marketing is permission-based marketing where businesses send texts to their customers regarding promotions, updates, events and so much more.
E-commerce businesses were the first types of businesses to essentially pioneer the use of SMS marketing. Because they were able to see such great success in SMS marketing, it quickly spread into other industries from car washes to medical spas.
In this article, I’m going to break down the top 6 benefits of SMS marketing that every business owner must know about.
1.) Open Rates
Open rates refer to the percentage of messages opened. 98% of ALL TEXTS are opened. There is no other channel that boasts results like this. In comparison, email open rates hover between 20-30%.
I want you to check your text message inbox. The statistics say that all of your texts are read. Are we right?
Now check your email. How many unread emails do you have? Is it significantly higher?
As a business, you want to be utilizing channels that have the best reach for your customers. Otherwise, you are just wasting valuable dollars.
2.) Fast Open Times
Continuing off of the first point, 90% of texts are opened within 3-5 minutes!
Again, think about yourself.
When you receive a text, how quickly do you check it?
This is huge for businesses that have time-sensitive information.
For example, if you own a restaurant and want to send out a promotion for just that one day, there is no better way to send that than texting.
Emails can take days to open, if ever.
You can now be confident that your messages are being delivered and READ in a timely manner.
3.) Customer Reach
According to the [United States Census Bureau](https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2021/computer-internet-use.html#:~:text=Smartphones were present in 84,ownership fell behind at 63%25.), in 2018, smartphones were present in 84% of households!
We can reasonably believe that this number has only increased in the last 4 years.
This means that, as a business, you have a broad audience to whom you can send SMS marketing texts.
Additionally, millennials prefer to text over talk.
It may be strange to think about, but we are moving into a world where people would rather communicate through their keyboard than through word of mouth.
4.) Cost-Effective
SMS marketing can be one of the most cost-effective marketing solutions, costing less than a few cents per message you send out.
Combine that with the 98% open rates and 3-5 minute open times and you have a marketing strategy that produces high ROIs for businesses.
Business owners don’t want to spend money on things that don’t generate money for them.
SMS marketing can be one of the best ways for businesses to bring back customers, which in turn spend more money.
At Text2VIP, plans start at $29/month on a no-contract basis.
5.) User-Friendly
Most business owners buck at the idea of adding new software into their already-busy lives.
A lot of worries come from not only learning the software, but also the time it takes to implement your task.
For example, when starting an email marketing service, business owners first must understand the email marketing software itself but then must learn how to craft emails.
Creating eye-catching emails alone can take hours to do, that’s with having a fairly good understanding of the software.
Add in a few other software and it can become overwhelming for business owners.
One of the beautiful things about text marketing is its simplicity.
Navigating the software is easy and sending or scheduling a text blast can take less than 5 minutes. Seriously.
6.) Growing Industry
In the past, some businesses have expressed concerns that their customers don’t want to be texted or that they feel like it would bother their customers.
First, SMS marketing is permission-based, which means that customers must “opt-in” to be texted. They do this through forms with disclaimers that let them know they will receive marketing messages through text. They can also opt in by texting a keyword to a phone number.
According to a survey found in a Forbes article, out of 1,000 consumers, 93% said they WANT to text with businesses. Even more interesting, 76% said: “they’d be more likely to frequent SMBs that offer text messaging.”
Conclusion
For many business owners, SMS marketing is still a relatively new strategy. I get questions all of the time from business owners wanting to learn more.
Hopefully this article was able to shed light on what SMS marketing is and why it is so powerful for businesses.
