For any industry despite using various digital strategies such as social media, email, paid ads, and offline advertising, engaging with customers is how you’re going to build your brand and grow your business.  

Since the covid outbreak, brands have soon realized that they were going through tough times in keeping their customers engaged. As a result, the business has found new solutions to attract a newer audience and retain the existing ones. This is when brands realized the true potential of SMS marketing to communicate with their customers about the brand. 

You might be thinking- nobody reads text SMS. But to prove you wrong, here are some statistics that let you know why brands are back after SMS marketing: 

1. SMS has higher open rates  

2. About 70% of people read texts within the first 3 minutes of delivery 

3. 45% of people usually reply to texts received from brands 

4. The click-through rates in the SMS texts are higher than in any other digital channel. 

So, now let’s have a look at knowing what it is and how brands are using SMS marketing to drive customer engagement. 

Let’s get started! 

What is SMS marketing? 

SMS marketing or short message service is a type of communication that requires permission from businesses to communicate with their customers through text messages to sell, advertise, send coupons or direct customers to the website for purchase.  

Since people carry their phones with them everywhere, SMS is the most efficient way for enterprises to convey the message to their customers by sending texts. 

It’s not an exaggeration to say that SMS marketing earns 4x times more revenue than email marketing at low costs. And, significantly it has more open rates and gets more engagement than any other digital marketing campaign. 

Here are a few important reasons that tell why SMS marketing works and how it performs when compared to other channels. 

SMS is an inbuilt application and is widely used 

Every smartphone comes with an inbuilt SMS messaging application and users love using text messaging due to its convenience. Not only being the most popular feature, it has also been a widely used feature by the smartphone users and the majority of them might have engaged with their family, friends, or any brand using SMS in the last two hours if asked. 

SMS is an invaluable communication method for consumers and allows businesses to start a conversation directly with the consumers in a distraction-free environment.  

Instead of competing with other players on Google, paid ads, and social media, it makes sense for organizations to use or at least test SMS in their marketing efforts. 

SMS messaging drives immediate communication 

SMS paves the way for faster and continuous conversations with your customers. And, according to research cited by Gartner, it takes 90 seconds for a user to respond to text messages. 

Affordable and high ROI 

Many entrepreneurs shy away from using SMS messaging assuming it to be highly expensive by comparing it to email marketing. Unless you’re buying an emailing list, email marketing is quite affordable. But unlike email marketing, which yields low ROI, text marketing trends positively. 

The cost of SMS marketing depends on how much an entrepreneur is willing to send to their customers. SMS marketing usually works by purchasing credits from a third party or an SMS aggregator. That means one can spend as little as they are comfortable. 

4 tips to drive better engagement using SMS marketing 

Send timely SMS campaigns 

Text messages may get a ton of engagement, but it doesn’t mean you can send several messages to your customers. The timing makes or breaks your campaigns. So, make sure that your customers receive messages only at the optimal times. 

For instance, many companies mark yearly holidays on the calendar and launch campaigns where they send discounts, offers, or buy one get one (BOGO) in the text messages. 

In addition to sending the text at the right time of the year, consider the time of the day your subscribers are reading your messages. Mark the timings and launch campaigns that align with your organizational goals. 

Engage customers with text surveys 

SMS surveys are one of the best ways to drive engagement from customers as you leave an option for them to say. 

You can let your shoppers decide on your next store launch, upcoming event, product variety, or theme using an SMS poll. 

Once they submit an answer, you can send them a follow-up message saying to them to stay tuned with your upcoming events. 

You could also send voting results in percentages if you wish to let your audience know about your next move. 

Send personalized text messages to your customers 

Many companies collect customers’ information to send about the next offer running in the store, flash sales, and promotions. However, customers provide their information with their consent, they’d love to receive SMS for offers, coupons, and flash sales from their favorite brand. 

Aside from sending your messages more personal, adding visual elements, and images consisting of your products, help you stand out and be more memorable.  

Strive to include the images and emojis in your text messages whenever it is appropriate to use. This makes your customers remember you! 

Instill a sense of urgency 

If you have got an offer expiring or a stock that is not moving, SMS is an ideal platform for you to send time-sensitive messages and move your graph up. 

Many brands often include a time limit in their promotions to instill a sense of urgency or FOMO in customers to help shoppers urge to take advantage of the offer while it lasted. And, using it in SMS makes it more sensible because people tend to open text messages immediately. 

Ask for a Feedback 

As now that we understood SMS is an effective tool for gathering customer response, as running a business you have a greater chance of collecting feedback and improving your ratings and review of your collections. 

SMS also helps brands and retailers improve customer satisfaction by getting appropriate feedback from customers on a specific experience. 

Conclusion: 

While all other strategies have a place in your business, SMS marketing propels your goals and allows you to engage with your customers and see a good ROI in return.  

SMS marketing has the potential to outperform all traditional channels in open rates, CTRs, and response rates. So, stop underrating and shying away from SMS marketing and start launching your campaigns. 

Good luck and Happy campaigning!