More on Promotional SMS Marketing
Short Message Service or SMS as it is often called has become one of the most popular forms of communication today. People young and old are texting these short messages to one another hundreds of times a day. It is an easy and effective way to communicate with one another person. Because SMS is such an effective way to communicate, it makes sense that businesses are taking advantage of it for marketing purposes.
The idea of promotional SMS marketing may still be fairly new, but there are many reasons that it is so effective. It offers several advantages to both the businesses that receive the SMS messages and the businesses that choose to send them. While many are familiar with what this type of marketing is like, they are not always aware of how it works, why it works and what the future holds in store for it.
How it Works
Businesses will ask customers to contact them through a text message to receive something or to learn something about the business. An example of this is seeing an ad that asks a person to:
“Text ‘Contest’ to 12345 to enter for a chance to win big prizes”
The word contest is the message that has to be typed in and the 12345 is a shortcode that sends the message to the business. When a person sends this text message they are agreeing to the terms and conditions of the business and are allowing the business to send promotional materials through SMS to that person in the future. It is just like creating a mailing list for the business to market their products or services to.
In order to take advantage of this type of marketing, a business will employ a service that provides them with the short code that will be used to collect the phone numbers to send out promotional SMS to. The codes are often shared by many businesses to keep the costs down. The business will make theirs unique by adding a password to their business.
Why promotional SMS Marketing Works
Like any marketing campaign, the key is finding something that works. There are many benefits that a business will find from promotional SMS marketing.
- People check their texts – The number of people that use text messages is very high, but the more important number for marketing purposes is how quickly people read the text messages they receive – studies show that 95% of people check their text message within 3 minutes of receiving it.
- Allows businesses to send coupons or notify them about special events – The marketing messages can send out coupons to the phone list on a regular basis. They can also tell people about sales and other promotions. It is easy to send out the message to a lot of people quickly and it will reach and be read by the customers in a timely fashion.
- Location Marketing – When the users of smartphones enable GPS location services, the businesses can see that information to send them texts when they are near the business location. It can even be used to send them information about the section of a store a person is in.
For businesses big and small, promotional SMS marketing is a very powerful tool. It’s ability to target specific audiences and to provide them with promotional material in a timely fashion, combined with the low cost of doing so, are all reasons that this type of mobile marketing will continue to grow in the future.