6 Reasons to try SMS Marketing in Your Business

Have you tried SMS marketing in your small business yet? It’s one of the more effective and affordable ways to promote your products and services, but unfortunately, few small businesses use it.

Marketing is all about communication. You can have the best services and products, but if you’re not communicating this value to potential customers,  your hard work will have little reward. The good news about marketing is that, while the principles and ideas behind it stay largely the same, there are always different ways to communicate value to your customers. SMS marketing allows you to have two way conversations with your customers through a device that they have on them all the time.

To help you realise the full potential of SMS marketing, we’ve listed some of its benefits here.

It’s time efficient

Email marketing is wonderful. It’s free, it’s effective, and it’s easy to do. But sitting down and writing an email takes time, and that’s one thing many of you don’t have. You can now send automated SMS messages up to 400 characters long from Timely. This is great for messages with lots of information, like pre and after appointment care instructions.

It’s worth it

If you’re skeptical about SMS marketing, you could try it with a handful of clients first. Sending an SMS campaign to a list of 100 of your best clients won’t cost a lot. If your reminder messages then save you just one no-show, that might be worth a month’s worth of SMS credits.

Short messages are to the point

With SMS marketing, your message is to the point, rather than being buried in a 600 word email. Although there is a time and place for both, SMS marketing is better suited to promotions, quick updates, and time-sensitive offers.

Higher open rates

It’s not rare to have multiple unread messages in your email inbox, but most people will read a text message within minutes of its arrival. Statistics show that 99% of text messages will be opened, and most will be within the first 3 minutes of being received. This is a drastic difference to email marketing’s average open rate of 33%.

Higher conversion rates

Conversion rates average on 8.22% for SMS marketing, which is far higher than email with its 1.73% average conversion rate. SMS marketing’s affordability and high success rate makes it one of the more valuable tools in your marketing toolbox.

Brand positioning

All of your business’s activities help build your brand identity. By using SMS marketing, you’re putting yourself another step ahead of the rest. You’re telling your customers that you’re tech savvy and up with the trends. You’re showing them that you’re willing to try new and more convenient ways of communicating with them.

The case for SMS marketing is strong and there is no hiding the fact that it works. If you’re using Timely, give SMS marketing a try by going to Promote > SMS marketing in your menu to get started, or for detailed instructions on getting started, visit this post.

Keep an eye out for the next post we have coming up on the topic of SMS marketing! It’ll tell you everything you need to know to run a campaign with Timely’s SMS marketing feature, including what keywords to use, how to make your message as effective as possible, and even the best times to send the message.