8 Reasons Your Enterprise Needs SMS Marketing Today

SMS marketing seamlessly engages mobile device users, putting your marketing in the palm of their hands.

You commit significant time, energy, and resources to engage with prospects and customers. Yet, despite your best efforts, you may be missing opportunities to promote your brand, products, and services.

A new marketing solution is available that can help you connect with target audiences faster and more effectively than email, phone calls, and other traditional marketing techniques: short message service (SMS) marketing. With the right SMS platform, your organization can drive revenue growth, distinguish itself from industry rivals, and put the right message in your customer’s hands at the right time.

SMS is quickly becoming a difference-maker for organizations around the world. To understand why, let’s examine how it works.

What is SMS marketing?

SMS marketing offers a fast, easy, and efficient way for organizations to communicate with prospects and customers. It uses permission-based, opt-in text messages to deliver highly targeted content, including:

• Alerts
• Coupons
• Promotions

Along with SMS, MMS marketing empowers organizations to deliver personalized messages to mobile device users. However, MMS offers picture messaging, and it lets organizations send text messages that contain images, videos, and audio clips to prospects and customers. SMS messaging sticks to text, which makes it universally accessible.

How does SMS marketing work?

With SMS marketing, mobile device users can opt-in to receive text notifications from your organization. Once a user agrees to let your organization send text notifications, you can use SMS to deliver targeted messages to them on their mobile devices.

SMS notifications are permission-based — prospects and customers must opt-in before they can receive these text messages from your organization. Mobile device users can also opt-out of SMS notifications at any time.

How 5 Industries use SMS marketing

SMS marketing is valuable for a variety of organizations, including:

• Food banks use SMS to request donations and send information about food drives and other community events. They can also send notifications to let community members know about food shortages and make urgent requests for certain needs.
• Government agencies use SMS to send public safety and awareness updates. SMS allows government agencies to immediately deliver mass notifications and critical alerts to large groups of stakeholders.
• HR organizations use SMS to manage employee onboarding and training. They can also utilize SMS to remind employees about organization-wide events and activities.
• Retailers use SMS to deliver coupons and alerts about upcoming sales. SMS enables retailers to promote new products as soon as they become available, too.
• Customer service centers use SMS to converse with customers in real-time. SMS helps customer service centers automate customer account management, which can drive customer loyalty, trust, and retention.

Why does your enterprise need SMS marketing?

The benefits of SMS marketing can be significant, regardless of your organization’s size or industry. But eight key advantages stand out for most industries:

1. Open rates are higher than email

SMS open rates can approach 98%, while the open rate for marketing emails usually falls around 20%. Research shows that up to 75% of consumers prefer receiving promotional messages via text over email.

2. Drives conversions

Mobile device users are more likely to act on messages they receive via text than other communication channels. As such, SMS delivers a higher conversion rate than most marketing methods.

3. Global marketing opportunities

Organizations can use SMS to send text notifications to mobile device users worldwide. These notifications can even be delivered to mobile device users in areas where no internet access is available.

4. SMS is instant

SMS notifications reach mobile device users instantly. They ensure that organizations can send timely, relevant messages to mobile device users that are usually opened within minutes of delivery.

5. Affordable mass messaging

SMS provides an economical solution to quickly deliver thousands of text messages to mobile device users. Affordable SMS plans are available, so your organization can find one that falls in line with its budget.

6. Marketing insights

Organizations can track open rates, conversions, and other SMS marketing data. Brands use this information to understand customer behaviors and trends, and to find ways to get the most value out of their marketing campaigns.

7. Unique format drives creativity

A typical SMS notification includes up to 160 characters, so you only have a limited number of characters to deliver its intended message. Brands must get creative to share the right message with the right audience at the right time, and this often leads to better creative messaging that can even find its way into your core brand style.

8. Integrates well with other marketing channels

SMS can be integrated into any marketing plan. Over time, your organization can evaluate the effectiveness of SMS relative to other marketing methods and allocate marketing spend accordingly.

3 SMS marketing tips for enterprises

Your organization can benefit from SMS marketing if it understands how to use it properly. Here are three tips to realize its full potential.

1. Know your target audience

A customer relationship management (CRM) platform provides comprehensive insights into how prospects and customers engage with your brand along the buyer’s journey. Use a CRM platform to gain insights into your target audience, then use those insights to craft effective SMS notifications.

2. Be direct

Make each SMS notification clear and actionable. Remember, your character count is limited, so do everything you can to make each character count. Ensure the message is easy to understand and encourages the reader to take action.

3. Choose the right SMS platform

Work with an enterprise messaging platform that makes it simple to send SMS and MMS notifications to your target audience. This platform should be easy to integrate with existing systems and processes. It should also be user-friendly and empower your marketing campaigns to reach the next level.

Mobilize Comms offers a mass SMS and MMS texting platform that is convenient, effective, and professional. To learn more about how our industry-leading solutions can elevate your mobile messaging, please contact us today.