Thinking of dipping your toes into the lucrative waters of SMS marketing? You’re not the only one!  

Sure, SMS marketing has been around for quite some time (since the early 00s), but it’s also evolved significantly over the last few years. Many brands now see it across various verticals as the most effective way to reach their customers quickly and effectively. In other words, it’s not the outdated, old-fashioned approach to marketing that many once saw it as! 

Not convinced? Then perhaps the following will whet your appetite: 

• 62% of consumers prefer to receive text messages from businesses over any other form of communication (SimpleTexting) 
• SMS messages have a 98% open rate (compared to just 20% for email marketing campaigns) (Mobile Marketing Watch) 
• 75% of consumers want to receive SMS messages from brands after they’ve opted in (Mobile Marketer). Fast-food giant Domino’s ran a successful SMS marketing campaign inviting new customers to text a pizza emoji to a specific number to place an order. The convenience and ease of the movement resonated with their customers and helped drive a 16% increase in online orders in the first quarter of the campaign. Not too shabby! 
• Moreover, 64% of consumers believe that businesses should use SMS more often to communicate with them (SalesForce).  
• And just over 80% of consumers are likely to engage with a brand offering SMS incentives (SimpleTexting). A couple of years ago. Coca-Cola ran a successful SMS marketing campaign asking customers to text in a code found on the inside of bottle caps for a chance to win prizes. Over 2.4 million people texted in codes driving engagement rates up a pretty impressive 7% from the previous year. 

Compelling stuff, right?! And with over 6 billion mobile phone users worldwide and 90% of adults in the US owning a mobile phone, marketers are working with a huge potential audience for their SMS marketing campaigns … Immediate delivery, high open rates: a direct and personal approach, and the ability to quickly capture your audience’s attention and drive action, SMS may very well be the missing piece in your marketing arsenal. 

But it’s not for every business! For many brands, email drives the results they’re looking for with the audience they’re marketing to. For others, push notifications will still be the golden ticket, powering growth year after year to reach their audience with hyper-engaging content. Not sure if it’s for you? What should you ask yourself if you’re considering making the foray into SMS?

Checklist: Should you dive deeper into SMS marketing? 

1. Who is our target audience, and will they likely respond to SMS marketing? If your audience is tech-savvy and uses their mobile devices regularly, you’re missing a trick if you’re not already on board with SMS marketing. If, however, your audience is more engaged with your website or regularly converts via your email campaigns, it may not be a smart investment. 

2. Do we often run limited-time offers that we need to get to our customers fast? Those impressive open and click-thru rates for SMS that we mentioned above mean that if you want to execute campaigns quickly and see results even faster – and you do so regularly – SMS could be the perfect approach; 90% of SMS messages are read within 3 minutes of being received, and enjoy an average click-through rate of 36%. 

3. Do we work with segmented audiences? If that’s the case, you’re already halfway there; SMS – like all marketing efforts – is super-effective when campaigns are targeted.  And because this type of messaging is often seen as more personal than other forms of marketing communication, the more targeted and personalized, the more likely the recipient is to respond. Bottom line? If you’re working with segmented audiences, SMS marketing is a no-brainer. 

4. Do we already have an existing omnichannel strategy – and could it benefit from another customer touchpoint?  Marketers who use three or more marketing channels enjoy purchase/engagement rates up to 250% higher than those using single channels (G2). Adding SMS into your marketing mix makes it powerful when strategically aligned with your other channels. So, for example, a customer might see an ad for your product on social, then receive an email with more information, and finally receive an SMS with a time-sensitive discount code to encourage them to make a purchase.  

5. Do we struggle with limited customer reach because of spam filters or push notification opt-ins?  While there are a ton of ways to improve push opt-in and email deliverability (and yes, we can help!), SMS is one of the best channels for keeping users engaged – they’ve got lower opt-out rates than push notifications (the average opt-out rate for SMS across all campaigns is less than 5% – Upland Software). You’ll find it easier to get to the top of your customer’s inbox (something increasingly difficult to achieve with push). 

6. Do we have the right tech in place to help us make a success of our SMS marketing efforts – quickly, efficiently, and cost-effectively?  Hey, we get it. Some businesses might feel overwhelmed by the technical side of SMS marketing. And whilst there’s no denying that setting up an SMS campaign requires at least some technical know-how (show us a marketing channel that doesn’t!), businesses may be unsure about choosing the right SMS platform or integrating SMS marketing with their existing marketing channels. If that sounds like you, we can help with that too. 

7. Will our budget stretch to another marketing channel? Show us a marketing team that isn’t working with an increasingly constrained budget and we’ll show you a unicorn tap dancing on a rainbow. Sure, businesses may worry about the cost of SMS marketing and whether it’s worth the investment, but we think it’s worth remembering that SMS marketing can be a highly cost-effective way to reach customers and drive conversions – and compared with other channels, it’s often much less costly, and if you’re doing it right, can deliver stellar returns. 

Why SMS with Optimove?  

OptiText (our native SMS tool) makes it easy for you to elevate your SMS marketing as an integral part of a greater marketing strategy, allowing you to start capitalizing on the benefits of native SMS in one integrated platform.   

More importantly, OptiText enables you to streamline campaigns by consolidating all their marketing efforts into one multichannel platform. Read all about it. 

So there you have it! If you’ve run through these questions and think there could be synergy between your current marketing efforts and SMS marketing (and we’ll bet there is!), there’s never been a better time to get started. If you’re ready to learn more about how smart SMS marketing can elevate your brand – and how we can help you reach these dizzy heights – you know what to do!