SMS Mobile Marketing: Common myths about SMS

It seems as if the emergence of smartphones in the world of mobile phones has put the touch of death on the majority of services that previous generation mobiles offered. One of these services is SMS. However, many of these services that were given up for dead in the world of digital marketing are actually showing signs of being alive and kicking, and are offering advantages and benefits to users with all types of mobile phones.

SMS Mobile Marketing: Common myths about SMS

• The first of these erroneous assertions is that SMS messaging is in decline.

The Short Messaging Service continues to be the only messaging service found on every mobile phone anywhere, with a rate of reception at over 90%. It’s a fact that at the end of 2015, there were already over 7.3 billion mobile phones in the world, all capable of receiving SMS.

A report by Telefónica sheds light on the increase of use of SMS by businesses. More and more businesses are integrating A2P services (Application to Person) in their digital communication, and multinational technology itself experienced a 22% increase in A2P SMS business over the period 2014-2015.  

James Lasbrey, global director of messaging for Telefónica, confirms that “while the market has developed free apps with success […], the potential of SMS for businesses is no competition.”

Telefónica’s study “attributes the success of business SMS to the fact that messages reach the majority of consumers proactively and at the right time, without the need for the recipient to have previously downloaded or subscribed to any application.”

• Secondly, the perception that nobody sends, or nobody wants to receive or even read an SMS, is false.

With free apps such as WhatsApp, Snapchat or Facebook Messenger in active competition and increasing exponentially, SMS are still the longest surviving method of mobile telephone messaging. Since their inception in 1992, they continue to be efficient due to the fact that SMS mobile marketing for businesses generates loyalty and creates results.

SMS is a messaging service with immediacy. Nearly 100% of all messages are opened and read just a few moments after being received (90% in under 3 minutes).

To send an SMS, the sender should have the authorization of the recipient, who can also exercise their legal rights and unsubscribe from the business’ database whether the message is to provide personal information or is part of an SMS mobile marketing campaign.

• Thirdly, creating an SMS mobile marketing campaign isn’t expensive or difficult.

The high rate of effectiveness of SMS campaigns is due to the ratio of opening (around 98% are read by recipients). For this reason, the return on investment is high.

SMS mobile marketing is a fast and direct method of communication between clients and businesses. It helps to improve brand image and customer relations, create a feeling of community among customers, and most importantly, increase loyalty to the company. SMS campaigns are normally sent in bulk, because the cost per unit is considerably reduced.

There are multiple platforms that provide services which help you create SMS campaigns which can be managed by the business itself, and will demonstrate just how easy it is to use. Like everything in a marketing campaign, you have to define the objectives, the target, the call-to-action…and be able to evaluate the results through clear, trustworthy statistics which unequivocally demonstrate ROI.