Why SMS is In
People are on the go all of the time and are relying on their mobile devices, and I had written about that in my previous blog post about mobile websites and marketing. You are now aware of how crucial it is to have a mobile website, but what about mobile marketing or SMS text marketing?
Will SMS Marketing Take the Place of Traditional Email Marketing?
That is difficult to say. But my hunch is telling me one day it may. We are not to that point yet. However, SMS marketing does have plenty of advantages over email marketing. It actually has many pros and let’s see what they are:
- Results are instantaneous- People on the go carry their mobile devices with them at all times (even if they are say in a movie theater they will just put the phone on vibrate). If they hear or “feel” a text, they will very likely open it. Compare this to emails that are conveniently ignored or just simply fall into the spam pile and are never seen at all.
- Inexpensiveand easy- SMS Marketing packages are much cheaper than email marketing because it is so easy to use. Messages are delivered easily and it can be kept simple and basic.
- Marketing is direct- as soon as a message is delivered, the recipient receives it as it was covered in #1. However, the recipient has a higher chance of connecting with the marketer and therefore, the odds of a sale being made is higher.
- Messages can easily go viral- the trick is to send out good and useful information that many people can use and before you know it, mobile users will forward messages to their friends and so on. If a pizzeria hires a marketer to do an SMS campaign, and the message is something like “Buy one medium size pizza, and get another free at “Joke-a-lot Pizzeria” (unsure if that is a real name, I did a search for it and did not see it and if by some chance this name has been used please let me know and I will remove it)- a mobile user receives this SMS text, and will start forwarding the text to his or her friends, and then they will send the text over as well, and so on.
- Benefits when it comes to microblogging- You can also Tweet the message out easily, as more and more mobile users are doing this.
These are just a few advantages of SMS marketing. Now you still have kinks with this form of marketing that need to be worked out such as privacy issues as well as some messages not appearing legible on some platforms. Especially since there are plenty of types of mobile devices. SMS marketing is still in its infancy and will only get better in time, and these issues will not be issues at that point.
12 Comments
I have to say that I have found SMS text marketing to be far more successful than email marketing. I think email marketing one day will die.
I just came onto your post and found it quite interesting. I am also associated with SMS Marketing, SMS text Marketing ,text Marketing, text Messages marketing, and enjoy to read the stuff on the same as its rarely found on internet. Thanks again for writing such a good post.
Yes even I too truly agree to this. Sms marketing has wider coverage than email marketing. Everyone has mobile phone these days. And also it’s much economical & time saving”
I am in the food industry and I have to say that SMS marketing has been a huge asset as far as getting more customers. It really does work. But it may not be as effective in all industries.
I own a dog spa and wondering if it is worth my while to check into SMS marketing.
Regardless of what kind of business you are in, it is worth looking into SMS marketing as it is inexpensive and highly effective.
I don’t think it’s gonna put email out of its misery, as long as there’s Computers, there’s no way its gonna happen. But sms marketing is really a good way of promoting your business especially in cases of local priorities, that sure is a good way to go for.
You may be right, not in the near future I feel you are right. And it may not happen in our lifetimes even but sms is definitely squeezing email marketing out.
As someone who has been involved in various types of SMS marketing over the past 8 years I can verify that it certainly works though you must also consider how personal a phone is to a users.
If you receive a marketing SMS that simply isn’t relevant to you or is a poor offer you are more likely to be put off for good or wonder how that company got your number.
Also, SMS is not going to kill email, in fact, email on the mobile phone is growing at an incredible rate so rather companies should be thinking of ways of optimizing their email for mobile devices and using SMS as a capture mechanic.
I have AT T, so this is probably NO help at all but I can log into my mioble web, and then set up my yahoo email through there.It even dings me when I get new messages.
I think the SEO industry has got a bad rap from all the snake oil salesmen and
overseas companies currently set up
Added a post on my Facebook, hope you dont mind
SMS marketing is far greater than the Email marketing in a way of it Mobile very handy.