Tuesday, April 24, 2012
There are numerous SMS marketing advantages for small businesses and organizations needing to increase sales, without increasing their advertising budget. It has quickly become the leader in the text marketing advertising medium and for good reason. Businesses who could no longer afford or stopped getting the same results from traditional marketing such as print or direct mail have found text marketing to be the answer they have been searching for. Let’s take a look at the top 10 SMS marketing advantages. 1) Redemption Rates: SMS text marketing averages 20% or higher redemption rates. Compare that with traditional media such as coupons, newspaper ads, radio, or direct mail which hoover around 2%. 2) Open Rate: Open rates are extremely high with text marketing. Your message is being read by 95% of recipients within 15 minutes of being sent. Email open rates in comparison average less than 20%. 3) Permission Based: Your customers must opt-in to receive messages from you. These are active buyers who want to receive more information, coupons and special offers so they may spend more money with your business. 4) Speed: Need near instant sales on a slow day? SMS marketing has the advantage. You can type and send a new offer that will reach your customer in minutes. It doesn’t take weeks like traditional media. 5) Cost: On a cost per customer acquisition model, text marketing is the cheapest and most effective way to reach your customers and increase sales. The cost of one small newspaper ad is more than a month of text marketing and will not bring you near as many customers as you need. 6) Return on Investment: With monthly costs lower than $100 to send 1000 text messages and redemption rates of 20% or more; it only costs .50 cents per customer in your door. Depending on your average sale with discount cost included, your return on investment is higher then any traditional marketing method. 7) Reach: Almost all of your customers have a mobile phone. No matter where they go throughout the day, it is among the must have items in their pocket, hand or purse. The percentage of your customers that read the newspaper, are able to receive direct mail or listen to the radio is much less then the percentage able and willing to opt-in to your mobile marketing campaign. 8) Flexibility: SMS text marketing can be used to send one-time offers, special sales, buy-one get-one deals, critical updates or announcements and just about anything you can think of inside of 160 characters. 9) Green: No paper to waste, coupons to throw out. Your offer is green on your customers cell phone. 10) Targeted: Your offer is only going to customers who want it. Targeted marketing increases ROI, redemption rates and sales. You can create multiple lists for different specials, product lines or announcements to be sure your message is crafted to the people who opted-in to your list. The SMS marketing advantages over traditional marketing are clear. If you have tried and tried every marketing medium out there with little success, this may be your answer.