SMS has come a long way from the first message it sent in 1992. From simple chats to fi0cial transactions, SMS marketing channels are growing at a handsome rate, with 23% more people will opt-in to receive SMS from companies in 2020. According to Open Market, 75% of customers prefer SMS for notifications, deliveries, payments, promotions and surveys. Not only that, based on the measurements of Esendex, SMS are opened 94% of the time, and have a 209% higher response rate than phone, email, or Facebook. 

However, SMS marketing is not as straightforward as it seems and requires serious planning. According to a survey by the editors of Internet Retailers magazine, companies are underutilizing SMS marketing as an effective tool to generate relationships with customers, with only 29% from the total respondents are using the service. Here is how understanding the full value of SMS A2P and building a strategy to effectively reach out to your customers in a mobile-first society is very important. 

Call to immediate response and convey a sense of urgency

One of the ways to ensure the success of your SMS campaign is to add an element of urgency in your messages, including a limited time offer that customers can immediately respond to. Design messages that contain actionable terms that encourage readers to open them and find out more. According to GSMA, the average person takes 90 seconds to reply to an SMS, but 90 minutes to respond to an email. This clearly shows that if you do it right, SMS is a very effective marketing channel for time-sensitive, participation-heavy offers. 

Maintain consistency and deliver your message in an ideal time

Always determine the most popular timings in sending your messages and seizing the attention from your audience. For consistent results, you can rotate your monthly campaigns through different days of the week, then analyze and compare customer responses. Choose your ideal timing for maximum response and avoid the time where your customers are busy enjoying time with their loved ones. 

Personalize your message and promote exclusivity

A study by DSIM suggested that only 10% of SMS marketing being considered as spam, compared to nearly 50% of emails. Although the statistics show customers are less likely to delete SMS without reading them, it is still very important to personalize your message and promote exclusivity in your SMS marketing campaign. Make your content special by using strategic terms such as “premium members” and “selected customers”, but keep it realistic and avoid anything over-the-top, since anything that sounds too good to be true can instantly repel customers.

SMS marketing is cheaper, has a wider audience, and provides a better open and response rate than many other conventional marketing channels, but still many companies aren’t taking the full advantage. Oftentimes customers feel companies are not communicating through SMS as much as they should, with 64% of customers think businesses should contact them via SMS more often, study by Text Better. Avoid this mistake and stay ahead from your competitors by driving a well-defined, persistent SMS marketing campaign and leveraging the power of this technology now.