The Essential Guide to SMS Mobile Marketing

With 5 billion people - roughly 65% of the world’s population - sending and receiving SMS messages, it’s safe to say that mobile use is more prevalent than ever. In North America alone, 292 million people use text messages, making it easily one of the most dominant forms of communication.

It’s evident that text messaging is not slowing down any time soon, which is why companies urgently need to explore ways of integrating SMS strategies into their business to access this global audience.

SMS mobile marketing is a great way for you to leverage this modern marketing opportunity by communicating directly with your target audience. It’s time to leave behind business phone calls, hold times, and boring emails. By integrating SMS marketing strategies, you will curate more engaging and meaningful interactions that ultimately boost your customer engagement, improve customer satisfaction and increases customer retention.

But before you invest in SMS mobile marketing, let us first take you through the best practice and how these SMS marketing campaigns can benefit your business 

What is the difference between SMS and MMS?

SMS, which stands for ‘short message service’ is effectively the same as ‘texting.’ To use SMS in a mobile marketing campaign, you are going to send off many SMSs to customers, which is where MMS comes in. - ‘multimedia messaging service.’ Fortunately, most of today’s popular texting apps can adapt to incoming MMS without restricting the messages to plain text. This is useful when you are sending a marketing SMS that includes an image, as the app can effectively display this image alongside the relevant text.

What are some uses of SMS mobile marketing?

SMS mobile marketing allows you to send text messages directly to your target audience for a number of reasons. These include:

• Welcoming customers to your brand, product or service;

• Alerting customers to upcoming sales and promotions that save them money on your products and services;

• Notifying customers of purchases, deliveries and returns;

• Confirming flight itineraries or other travel bookings with updates via SMS;

• Providing recommendations about related products;

• Alerting customers to new product launches;

• Inviting qualifying customers to events;

• Enquiring whether customers would like a call center to call them back to prevent them holding the line;

• Sending billing reminders so that your customers pay you on time;

• Reminding customers about appointments to limit cancellations and no-shows;

• Enquiring whether customers would like to top-up digital goods such as airtime, subscriptions or data bundles;

• Informing customers of a new franchise location opening in the area; and

• Informing customers about curbside pick-up and contactless payments information and details.

What are SMS Opt-in Rules?

Before embarking on an SMS mobile marketing campaign, you need to understand – and abide by – the SMS opt-in rules that apply. These were established by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and other government agencies to protect consumers and breaking these rules can cost you big in fines.

The opt-in rule states that you must request a customer’s permission before you send the person text messages for marketing purposes. If you hire a marketing agency to manage your SMS mobile marketing campaign, you will need to get permission for that company to send messages.

You also need to provide your customers with an easy way to opt out of future SMS mobile marketing campaigns. You can fulfill this obligation by adding the line ‘Reply STOP to stop receiving messages. to the bottom of your texts. Few people will opt out unless they truly do not have an interest in your brand.

How do you improve your SMS acceptance rate?

It might sound difficult to convince people to sign up for SMS messages, however, often you have to ask for permission when selling a product or service. Some ways to improve your acceptance rate include:

• Sending a message to the customer during the checkout process that gives your company permission to send them promotional texts;

• Telling customers they can get discounts by following SMS marketing links;

• Offering exclusive invitations to events; and

• Adding a call-to-action (CTA) that encourages customers to accept text messages.

How do you Target the Right People with SMS Mobile Marketing?

Every marketing campaign you undertake needs to target the right people to increase your conversions and revenue. With SMS mobile marketing, there are several ways you can target your desired audience. Some of the most effective options include:

• Only sending SMS mobile marketing messages to customers who have expressed an interest in receiving them;

• Targeting people in a specific area, such as in a neighborhood where your business has a location;

• Sending text messages at the right time, such as giving recipients discounts around the holidays or other special times during the year; and

• Targeting customers who haven’t bought anything from your website in a certain amount of time.

Sending SMS mobile marketing messages costs money, so you want to target people as accurately as possible to ensure you get a return on investment (ROI).

What Are the Advantages of Mobile Advertising?

As spam filters trap your emails and carriers block your calls, the advantages of mobile advertising become increasingly important. Some main benefits your business will get from mobile advertising include:

• Creating a direct channel that reaches your target audience immediately with real-time messaging.

• Faster communication for time-sensitive updates and notifications.

• Funneling customers from SMS messaging to diverse channels, such as online stores, landing pages, and polls.

• Gathering information about customers who opt-in for mobile advertising.

• Improving customer engagement by sending them friendly texts with gentle CTAs.

• Creating personalized interactions with customers and giving them a more customized a digital customer experience.

• A comparatively low-cost way to reach your customers while boosting productivity and ROI.

Reach More Customers with SMS Mobile Marketing

Researchers predict 6 billion people will send and receive SMS text messages by 2025.

It is time for your business to get ahead with an SMS mobile marketing campaign that speaks directly to your customers! Take full advantage of this relevant communication tool that allows you to sell to a worldwide audience. With Clickatell, you can benefit from an SMS tool that is quick and easy to use. With its single account interface, you only need one account for multiple business users. Our platform is built in the cloud so that our customers can access it anywhere, anywhere. SMS creates a more convenient, seamless, and effortless way for brands to reach more customers.

Learn more about Clickatell's SMS solutions today or contact our team to find out more about our SMS solutions, pricing and how we can modernize your marketing approach today!