Back in ’92 a Finnish engineer named Matti Makkonen would design a simple communication technology that 27 years later would become one of the most effective direct marketing channels.
Now businesses can send SMS online allowing them to reach highly targeted and engaged sales customers on demand 24/7.
In this article, I’ll share the top 5 reasons why businesses are exploiting online SMS in 2019.
source: roybazar.com
Contents
Reason 1: Open rates are critical to sales conversions
All things being equal (i.e. the same promotion to the same list) If you can get twice as many people to see your promotion then you can expect an increase in sales, potentially twice as many.
This is why marketers spend a lot of time finding ways to increase open rates.
The average open rate for email campaigns averages out at around 22%-30% if you have a hyper-responsive list.
With SMS you can expect to receive anywhere from 82-97% open rates, which means an instant increase in sales volume, In fact, the brand manager for an Australian Wine Retailer reported that their SMS campaigns produced 300% more sales than their email campaigns!
Reason 2: High click-through rates
Marketers agonise over how to achieve higher click-through on their email campaigns because like open rates this is linked with higher chances of increasing sales.
This means running split tests and continually optimizing to inch towards higher click-through.
SMS has a naturally high click-through rate out of the tin, according to SmartInsights.com 19%+ of people are likely to click on a link inside an SMS as compared to only 4% with email.
That is extraordinarily high giving any business owner the chance to out-perform skilled marketers.
source: e-marketing.fr
Reason 3: SMS is not an online marketing channel (this is a GOOD thing)
Everyone is investing heavily into online marketing meaning that there is a LOT less competition in certain offline media channels – SMS is one of those channels!
Online marketing comes pre-packaged with challenges like SPAM filters, search algorithm updates, ad-blockers, skyrocketing paid ad costs etc. all designed to protect the consumer while also seriously suppressing your marketing results.
Since SMS isn’t an online channel it doesn’t suffer from any of these barriers giving you 100% access to leads and customers.
Reason 4: Works great with other channels
While SMS is great by itself it works even better if integrated into existing channels.
For example, If you have an important email newsletter or promotion going out then send everyone on your list an SMS asking if they’d seen your last email this instantly increases email open rates.
source: blog.adsmain.com
Companies will typically use SMS to improve:
- Webinars
- Product launches
- Opening nights
- Special events
- Trade show traffic
- Abandoned cart recovery
- Reactivation campaigns
Doing this bolsters your overall marketing channel performance.
Reason 5: It’s a low cost, high ROI marketing channel
In the early 2000’s it was possible to get clicks for only a few cents using AdWords (these were referred to these as “penny clicks”) allowing businesses to generate new customers next to nothing.
Unfortunately, those days are long gone, now you’re easily paying anywhere from $8 to $50 per click depending on the competitiveness of the keyword.
SMS is like the good old days of the penny click where you can send a promotion to your customer for a few cents and get a massive ROI.
In fact, here’s a useful SMS marketing guide that reveals a few useful tips on how to squeeze the most juice from your SMS marketing campaigns.
source: shauryainfotech.in
