Robyn Rivera
When people think of digital marketing, they often think of digital advertising campaigns, SEO or social media marketing. What people often don’t think of is text message marketing, or SMS marketing as it’s sometimes called.
Lots of small businesses overlook text message marketing as a viable marketing strategy, but there are many reasons to start taking advantage of it for your business. Here are just a few.
Text message marketing campaigns average an open rate of around 82% (TWILIO). Compare that with email marketing, which has an average open rate of only about 21% (Mailchimp).
Email marketing and text message marketing are both ideal channels for building customer loyalty and getting repeat business, but when it comes to open rates, email marketing can’t hold a candle to text message marketing.
Part of the reason for this is that there’s no spam folder to contend with in text message marketing. And, since your recipients have to opt in to receive text messages from you, they actually want to read them.
Did you know that 90% of marketing text messages are read within just 3 seconds of being received (Adobe)? One of the biggest benefits of text message marketing is how immediate it is.
Someone might sit with an unread email in their inbox for days, weeks or even months. But, that’s not the case with text messages. Since most people have their phones within reaching distance most of the time, they’re able to read texts immediately.
If you have a time-sensitive message to send, like an appointment reminder, a question about an upcoming appointment or anything else, SMS is the way to go.
Let’s face it. Most small businesses don’t have a bottomless marketing budget. And that means that every dollar spent on marketing needs to be spent wisely.
Text message marketing is a smart channel to take advantage of, because it’s incredibly affordable. You can send a text message to thousands of customers at once without breaking the bank.
And, when you choose the right text message marketing software, you can create automated campaigns without putting in a whole lot of time or effort.
Too often, small businesses are so focused on getting new customers in the door that they forget about the customers they already have. This is a mistake that can end up costing them their most valuable customers.
While customer acquisition is always a good thing, it’s important to remember that loyal customers will spend more, cost less to market to and be more likely to tell their friends and family about your brand.
Text message marketing is a powerful tool because it’s all about staying connected with your existing customers and building future loyalty.
There are a lot of ways to connect with your customers these days, but not all of them are great in terms of engagement.
Like I said, an email might sit unread for an extended period of time before it either gets deleted or read. Text messages are often read immediately, and since people are opting in, they’re more likely to be receptive to the message.
Compared to other digital marketing channels, text message marketing has some of the best engagement rates.
Another great reason to take advantage of text message marketing is that it can be used for just about anything.
Do you need to remind a customer about an upcoming appointment? Do you want to send a curated offer to your most loyal customers? Are you offering a limited-time special that you want to get the word out about? Do you want more customer feedback and reviews?
Text message marketing works for all of these things and more. It’s a versatile marketing tool, and with it, the sky’s the limit.
Most marketing channels don’t operate as well in a silo, and although text message marketing works as a stand-alone channel, it tends to work a whole lot better when you use it to enhance and complement your other marketing efforts.
Like with email marketing, digital advertising and most other marketing channels, text message marketing works best when you combine it with your other marketing efforts.
For example, let’s say you’re running a contest on Facebook. By including shortcodes in text messages, you can give recipients an easy way to enter the contest for a chance to win.
Smart marketing is about doing more of what’s working for you and less of what’s not; however, that’s only possible if you know what’s working and what’s not.
Text message marketing is very trackable, and you can monitor everything from how many people are opening and reading your text messages to how many people are opting in and out of receiving texts.
Equipped with this data, you can tweak and fine-tune your SMS marketing campaigns to maximize your ROI and drive better results.
Ready to start enjoying the many benefits of text message marketing?
The Marketing 360® Nurture app is the only SMS marketing software you need to build, send and monitor automated text message marketing campaigns quickly and easily. See our plans and pricing.