SMS marketing is a powerful yet underutilized method for reaching consumers with your marketing message on the device closest to them, the one they spend the most time on: their mobile device.
As powerful as this marketing channel can be, it’s a tough one to get exactly right. The short, text-based nature of SMS messaging creates some limitations on what can be done via text message marketing—but savvy businesses are leveraging new tools to maximize engagement in this channel.
Whether you’re a small business, part of an enterprise, or somewhere in between, this post gives you everything you need to increase engagement via SMS marketing.
What is SMS marketing?
SMS marketing, or text message marketing, is a digital marketing strategy where ecommerce and other businesses use SMS (“short message service,” the text-based protocol behind cellular text messaging) to communicate with customers and leads. An SMS marketing program is an ideal way to use marketing automation to follow up on abandoned carts, reach customers with customer loyalty messaging or about sales and special offers, and personalize marketing efforts to a target audience.
This is accomplished using SMS marketing software or an SMS marketing platform of some kind.
Why SMS marketing is so effective
SMS marketing provides a powerful benefit: You can send a personalized message to customers in a private space often reserved for friends and family. This leads to higher open and click-through rates than email and other channels.
“Customers are significantly more likely to click on a branded link you send through text versus email,’’ says Cari Jacquet, VP of Marketing for BigPanda, an AIOps event correlation solution.
Using SMS marketing tools along with a link shortener like Bitly, you can link from the text message to a landing page that provides details and the opportunity to make a sale, sign up, or convert in some other way. Build your customer loyalty by providing personalized access via SMS to upcoming sales or discounts tailored to their purchase history.
Effective SMS marketing campaigns include short, branded links or shortened links that fit within a limited space. Once customers opt in to receive text messages, businesses use calls-to-action, emojis, and images to increase the click-through rate (CTR). Personalizing content goes a long way toward building a brand and encouraging customer loyalty. Explore our complete guide to using short links for SMS.
Benefits of SMS marketing
Your marketing department is busy enough, so why bother adding another channel? Because SMS marketing produces serious results. Consider these 11 benefits.
Curious about how to leverage an SMS marketing service to provide timely or even real-time updates to subscribers around the holidays? Check out our post on leveraging SMS marketing for the holidays.
1. Speed of contact
Bulk SMS messaging lets you send texts to customer groups immediately in scheduled batches for fast delivery.
“The most valuable aspect of mobile marketing is reaching customers instantly. We see customer traffic increase 5 to 10 times the day the text is sent, and 3 to 5 times higher after two days when compared to a typical day,” says SMS marketing expert Barbara Casey, the CEO of Mobile High 5, a full- service SMS marketing solutions provider.
2. Higher open rates and response rates
These rates are sky-high, especially compared with email. Research giant Gartner concluded that SMS open rates can soar as high as 98%, and response as much as 45%. Compare that to email, which Gartner measures at a 20% open rate and 6% response rate.
3. Higher click-through rates (CTRs)
People click the links in SMS messages at higher rates. Forty-three percent of SMS marketers reported click-through rates between 20 and 35%, according to SimpleTexting 2021 SMS Marketing Report.
4. Increased demographics reach
Your customer reach can expand in marketing segments that don’t utilize daily email or frequent social media. Text messaging works everywhere for anyone with a smartphone. Customers don’t have to download anything or worry about learning a new task.
Digital natives are tied to their phones, as are many customers across nearly any age demographic. According to Attentive Mobile’s 2021 SMS Marketing Consumer Trends Report, shoppers between 39 and 75 years old are more likely to connect to your business via text than social media. Also, 56% stated they are already receiving text messages from companies.
5. Global customers for global businesses
When businesses are international, they benefit from the increased sales reach to customers around the world. Anyone with a text-enabled phone can receive messages without any additional work. A 2022 study predicts the global market for enterprise SMS, also called A2P or application-to-person, will hit $74.7 billion by 2026 vs. $59.1 billion in 2020.
The United States currently accounts for $16 billion of that total, according to the Research and Markets report titled “A2P SMS – Global Market Trajectory & Analytics.” The same report also predicts that China will hit $14.4 billion by 2026.
6. A complement to other marketing channels
SMS complements other marketing channels such as social media, email, TV, radio, and print, helping reinforce or extend messaging customers may receive through those other channels. Casey states: “You always want your VIP list to be treated as such, so you don’t send repeat offers in an email. If you’re promoting an event via email, then send a reminder via text, for example.”
7. Increased engagement with personalized content
The more personal the text, the higher the customer engagement. Personalization creates a more positive customer response rather than a rapid delete. People use cell phones more than desktops, tablets, or landline phones. Building a relationship with customers by rewarding them for selecting a link or acting on an SMS alert for an item on sale increases customer satisfaction.
According to Attentive Mobile’s 2021 SMS Marketing Consumer Trends Report, 91% of consumers are interested in signing up for texts from their preferred brands. Moreover, 66.5% of shoppers had signed up to receive SMS messages from more companies than the previous year.
8. Cost-effectiveness
SMS marketing requires less investment in technology, custom coding, and content development. You may consider using an agency or service and leverage their data and technology to your benefit. SMS marketing presents an affordable alternative to businesses or individuals wanting to build their brand.
“In addition to a high open rate, text messages offer numerous benefits to the marketers such as affordability, no dependency on the internet, and immediate results through two-way messages,” according to a 2019 report by Grand View Research.
“Additionally, text messaging allows personalizing promotional offers as per target customers. Marketers can include the name of the customer in the beginning or provide offers on particular products that are frequently purchased by a customer.”
These benefits can combine to create an effective ROI for SMS. See our guide to SMS text advertising and campaigns to get started.
9. Shortcodes for scaling
SMS short codes are five- or six-digit numbers organizations lease from a regulatory agency. These simpler codes replace the 10-digit phone numbers that would otherwise appear as the sender. Customers opt in by texting a keyword back to the shortcode. Shortcodes provide an easy way to scale your database by simplifying responses. By adding them in your other marketing channels, it will just take seconds for people to become part of your marketing database.
10. Short links
These shortened links increase customer response while saving text space. Shortened URLs take up less space and allow businesses to customize the URL with their brand. Customers prefer to click on URLs they recognize. Links that are not identifiable are seen as fraudulent and are deleted.
11. Better customer data
SMS provides useful data that enables personalized content for messages. “You want to deliver the content a customer has asked to receive or has shown interest in,” Casey says. “The more personalized the message, the greater the CTR.” Also, short link platforms like Bitly offer better analytics than you might otherwise get.
Challenges of SMS marketing
SMS is a valuable marketing channel, but it also has disadvantages. The limited text space can lead to vague or spammy-looking messages that recipients ignore or delete. In addition, managing the opt-in process and legalities can be challenging.
Be aware of the potential pitfalls listed here, but it’s worth noting that following SMS best practices can easily overcome these pitfalls.
Limited text space
Text messages are short. With such a limited text space, it can be hard to be completely clear. When users receive a vague or cryptic message, they tend to ignore it, opt out, or delete it.
However, keep in mind that you can save significant space by using branded short links that increase trust and credibility.
Security concerns
SMS marketing messages come from nondescript five- or six-digit numbers—and there’s nothing you can do about that unless users proactively add your SMS service as a contact. Since people aren’t instantly sure whether your texts are really from you, they may be concerned about fraudulent texts and delete messages without action.
Good news: You can overcome the fear of clicking on a link by using branded short links and following a consistent, recognizable format in your marketing SMS messages. One brand safety concern involves shared shortcodes, but working with a professional provider will alleviate that.
Opt-in process
It can be challenging to persuade customers to opt-in to SMS alerts. Many may hesitate to share phone numbers unless they trust your brand to handle them appropriately. But really, this isn’t all that different from opt-in challenges surrounding email marketing.
Higher unsubscribe rates
SMS marketing does see higher unsubscribe rates than several other channels, but this isn’t purely a disadvantage. At least in part, the rates are higher than email because customers open SMS messages with much higher frequency. (Chances are, your own smartphone home screen indicates hundreds if not thousands of unread emails, but almost no one can resist that text message notification.)
To minimize unsubscribes, keep the texts relevant, control the frequency, send them during regular business hours, and always keep your tone professional.
SMS marketing regulations
Sending SMS marketing messages is highly effective, but you must follow the relevant government regulations intended to protect consumer rights and data privacy. One effective solution is to use a professional SMS marketing provider to guide your opt-in procedures, data handling, disclosures, and other legalities.
7 surefire tips to increase SMS marketing engagement
Three attributes are key to increasing SMS marketing engagement: customer connection, value, and trust. Use these seven proven elements of SMS marketing best practices to improve all three attributes in your SMS marketing strategy.
1. Personalize your messaging and offerings
Personalization makes a big difference in terms of customer connection and even trust. When your customer feels like a person, not the recipient of an impersonal mass text, then your message resonates differently.
2. Include compelling call-to-actions
It’s hard to overstate the value of calling readers to take a particular action. Don’t just tell your reader about something; encourage them to do something with that information.
But in such a short character count, it’s tough to actually do it (and do it well).
It’s important not to overthink this, though: sometimes “See more:” plus a short, branded link is all it takes to get a click-through.
3. Use branded short links to encourage clicks
Creating branded short links in SMS marketing using a service such as Bitly accomplishes several things. First, these links can serve as a way to brand your text message, making your message obviously and authentically from you and not just from “297294” or whatever number you end up with. This communicates trust and customer connection, improving the chances your message will be read and acted upon.
Second, short links save space—and space is at a premium in SMS marketing. Using short links gives you more character count to devote to delivering value.
4. Optimize message timing
Often, simple timing is the difference between getting ignored and generating a click-through or sale. Fast-food offers work best when readers are hungry; business-related offers may be best during work hours, and so forth.
Think about the reasons your customers interact with your brand, as well as what times of day they’re most likely to do so, and schedule your SMS campaigns accordingly.
5. Offer exclusive deals
We hate to say it, but consumers are growing offer-weary. When every single email or piece of mail promises some legendary deal, users’ eyes can start to grow numb to those deals.
One way to break through this kind of desensitizing is to offer genuinely exclusive deals via SMS. We’re talking about legitimate deals and discounts that users cannot get any other way. By delivering actual value via your SMS marketing, you increase both attention and retention.
6. Mention your brand name in the message
Unless you’re absolutely killing it at SMS marketing, people won’t recognize your messages unless you introduce yourself. (Again, 92740 isn’t a particularly branded address, but it might be what you show up as.)
This can be as simple as starting every message the same, such as “[YOUR BRAND] offer:” or something similar. If you’ve already built brand loyalty, just seeing your name could be incentive enough to open.
7. Track campaign performance
Last, make sure you’re tracking how well each campaign performs, including A/B testing where applicable. Not every offer or message is equally effective. But when you track what works and what doesn’t, you gain crucial data that helps you shape your messaging down the road.
Boost your SMS click-through rates using Bitly
Marketers like you need an effective tool for executing their SMS marketing campaigns. But you also need a better way to create custom-branded short links that instantly improve trust and increase click-through rates.
Bitly is the solution: You can tap into the powerful Bitly API to create thousands of unique SMS communications, enabling you to send special offers, customer support updates, service alerts, appointment reminders, location-based promotions, and more.
With Bitly, customers will recognize your brand with custom short links, and you’ll save on per-character fees. Find the Bitly solution that’s right for you.