You know text message marketing is an effective mobile marketing channel when you see it everywhere. You might expect retail businesses to use SMS text marketing to connect with and engage customers, and you are likely aware that political parties use SMS marketing messages in order to solicit donations and “Get Out the Vote”. But schools? Churches? Community non-profit groups? Why?
The answer is simple. Text message marketing works. It gets important messages to people quickly - whether they are customers, voters, students, churchgoers or volunteers - and it uses SMS technology. The SMS technology factor is important. Despite the growth of smartphones, SMS marketing messages can be received by 92% of the population, including in areas where there is no Internet connection.
To put the broad reach of text message marketing into perspective, TV has a reach of 71.5% and your customers have to be in the right place at the right time in order to see your ad. 91% of Americans keep their mobile devices within reach at all times, and 83% of all text messages are opened and read within ninety seconds of delivery. SMS marketing campaigns are also significantly cheaper than TV advertising.
A Brief Introduction to SMS Text Marketing
SMS text marketing involves sending an SMS marketing message to a large group of people simultaneously. However, because text message marketing is a “permission-based” activity, you cannot simply purchase a list of cellphone numbers and start spamming the public. People have to opt-in to your text marketing service and give their permission for you to send them SMS marketing messages.
The most effective way of attracting customers to your business - and have them opt into your text marketing service - is through keywords. Keywords are short, memorable words that you invite potential customers to text to a dedicated number in order to benefit from a promotion. When the potential customer responds to your invitation, they are asked to opt into your service and - when they do so - they are added to your customer database.
Your customer database is maintained on a service provider´s web-based platform. This platform is the tool you use to send SMS text marketing messages to large groups of people simultaneously. When you are ready to send an SMS text marketing message, you log into the platform, select which customer database you want to receive the message (you might not want to send every message to every customer in your database), write your message, and click “send”.
Within minutes, your customers will be receiving and reading your SMS marketing message wherever they are, whatever they are doing. The platform allows you to monitor delivery rates and spikes in engagement so you can fine-tune future SMS text marketing campaigns. It is also the portal through which you will receive replies to your messages and responses to surveys if you choose to use that particular marketing feature.
The Advantages of Long-Code Text Message Marketing
There are two main types of text message marketing - short-code and long-code. Short-code text message marketing is when customers respond to a promotion by texting a keyword to a five- or six- digit number. With long-code text message marketing, customers respond to a promotion by texting the keyword to a ten-digit number.
There can be a significant advantage to using long-code SMS text marketing to promote your business to customers - namely that long-code SMS marketing messages are accepted by all carriers, whereas short-code SMS marketing messages are not. This means that more customers will be able to access your text marketing service and receive details of your future promotions, giving you a competitive advantage over every business in your industry sector using short-code SMS text marketing.
There are also indirect advantages of long-code SMS text marketing if you use your text marketing service to send surveys to your customer database. Surveys that catch the imagination are often shared among friends and family members, who then opt into your text messaging service to receive future surveys. Surveys can be a great way to expand your customer database quickly, and more effective if you use long-code SMS text marketing.
Try Long-Code SMS Marketing from Group Texting
Group Texting is one of a group of companies that has provided businesses with text marketing services since 2006. Using our experience in the industry and feedback from our clients, we have developed a long-code SMS text marketing product that is simple to use yet incredibly effective at connecting with customers and engaging with them.
Our long-code SMS text marketing product is built upon a web-based platform with an exceptional range of features to enhance every mobile marketing campaign. You can personalize your SMS marketing messages with the recipients´ names, prepare mobile marketing campaigns in advance and schedule them to be sent when they will attract the maximum attention, or manage your customers into groups according to their interests to send only relevant promotions and optimize your marketing costs.
To find out more about text message marketing from Group Texting, do not hesitate to get in touch. We offer free account set up, free access to our Group Texting platform, and a number of tools you can use to attract more customers to your business - such as “click-to-join” widgets you can place on your website or distribute through social media.
We offer a selection of competitive pricing plans, including our popular “Pay-&-Go” option. This option is ideal for businesses who have never tried text message marketing before as it comes with a free demo keyword to start building your customer database and, if you contact us today, ten credits to try text message marketing from Group Texting for free.