Consumers worldwide are constantly on their phones: 98% of text messages are opened and read. It’s virtually guaranteed that when you send a text, your audience will receive and read it.
Despite its proven effectiveness, SMS marketing is still an underutilized communication channel for many businesses. More than 60% of brands still need a formal strategy for using SMS marketing.
Companies that invest in SMS marketing can still gain a competitive advantage. In this guide, we’ll break down the basics of SMS marketing, the software and tools you need to leverage this channel, and some best practices for keeping your audience captivated.
What is SMS marketing?
SMS marketing uses text messages (SMS) to directly market products and services to customers. Compared to other marketing methods, SMS marketing is a highly effective way to ensure your message is seen promptly and drives immediate action. Consider these statistics:
- 80.5% of consumers check their texts within five minutes of receiving a notification.
- More than 80% of consumers have opted in to at least one brand’s SMS marketing program.
- 30% of customers will make a purchase in response to text messages.
SMS outreach can boost engagement, relationships, and loyalty when used as part of a broader marketing strategy. It’s direct, it’s personal, and it’s pretty much instant.
What are the benefits of SMS marketing?
SMS marketing helps businesses achieve their sales targets at a lower cost than traditional marketing options. Here are a few reasons why SMS marketing strategies are so powerful.
1. High open rates
Today’s consumers are always on their phones, which is why SMS marketing is so effective. SMS boasts open rates exceeding 90%, compared to email's 20-30%. However, availability isn’t the only reason SMS marketing has high open rates.
When you send an SMS, it’s pretty much guaranteed that your audience wants to receive it. Rules governing SMS marketing require consumers to opt-in to receive text messages from brands. As a result, you can rest assured that message recipients want to hear from you — and, they are likely to read and respond to your campaign.
2. High conversion rates
An audience primed to receive messages from your brand is just the first ingredient for successful sales. SMS can be easily personalized with platforms like Plivo. By using customer data in your SMS campaigns—such as their name, past purchases, or browsing history—you can tailor your SMS to each individual recipient.
3. High ROI
This engaged audience nets huge benefits for your brand. Marketing texts prompt more than 50% of consumers to make a purchase. Moreover, the ROI on SMS marketing campaigns is estimated at $71 for every dollar spent. This demonstrates that SMS marketing is one of the most effective sales channels compared to social media, email, or any other traditional marketing outreach.
7 SMS marketing strategic use cases for your business:
Businesses use texting for a variety of purposes, some marketing-related and some not. Common uses include reminders, delivery updates, and promotions. Not all of these are marketing tactics, but texting does have some great marketing applications. Let’s look at seven of the top SMS marketing use cases and see how some leading businesses take advantage of them.
1. Promotional offers
Since promotions are time-sensitive, you want to make sure they get opened quickly, or they might sit unopened until they expire. Thinx, a provider of feminine hygiene underwear, uses SMS marketing to send out promotional offers.
2. Reminders
Reminders are notifications that keep customers in the loop about their orders. People get distracted with other activities and forget about purchases. If a customer got an email about a food delivery, they might not notice it, but a text message? It’s going to pop up. DoorDash, an online food ordering company, uses texting to remind customers about their food orders.
3. Customer surveys and ratings
A customer survey lets you get feedback on what you’re doing well and what you could be doing better. Text response rates are 7.5 times higher than email response rates, so texting customer surveys is better. Texting lets you get creative and engaging in your survey. Seamless, a food delivery service, uses interactive texting to get customers’ feedback on their service.
4. New product or service launch
When you have a new product or service, you want to tell your customers about it. These announcements might not get noticed in a crowded email inbox, but they make an impactful impression via text. Sakara, a plant-based food company, uses texting to update customers on new products and even offers early access.
5. Shopping cart abandonment
More than 70% of customers abandon potential purchases in online shopping carts, according to data from Baymard Institute. Swank A Posh, an online women’s fashion store, utilizes texting to remind customers of clothing left in their shopping carts.
6. Content sharing
Texting is an effective way to share how-to guides, information about a product, and other resources with customers. Ford Motor Company uses texting to provide information on Ford cars with CTAs such as “For more information, text FORD to 63111.”
7. Automated responses
Manually responding to customers can be taxing, especially on a large scale. Automating processes helps you run smoother. Your business can use SMS autoresponders to give instant responses to your customers when they need them. Julep, a cosmetic brand, uses SMS autoresponders to allow customers who viewed an ad to text “BETTER” and receive offers.
What are some SMS marketing best practices?
These stellar results don’t come without putting the right infrastructure and best practices in place. Follow these SMS marketing best practices to ensure your campaigns are a success.
1.Make sure you have opt-in permission
Perhaps the most important rule to follow when implementing an SMS marketing strategy is to make sure you have opt-in consent.
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union mandates opt-in consent for certain types of data processing. This regulation requires that consent is freely given, specific, informed, and unambiguous. Failing to obtain proper opt-in consent can lead to significant fines and legal issues for businesses.
Opt-in helps businesses demonstrate respect for user privacy and build customer trust. Make sure to use an opt-in message to get explicit consent before sending any marketing messages via SMS.
[Read more: What Do Opt In and Opt Out Mean?]
2.Use a tool to manage and automate SMS messaging
SMS campaigns can quickly become unmanageable without the right tools in place. Imagine sending an SMS manually to every single customer. It would be a poor use of your and your team’s time.
Plivo sends millions of SMS messages every month. Through Plivo’s platform, you can procure the right number (long code, short code, etc.), send application-to-person (A2P) messages that abide by industry rules, and utilize the API to make sure your messages are delivered without disruption.
[Read more: Plivo’s Guide to SMS Marketing]
3.Keep your content short and sweet
SMS messages have a strict 160-character limit. As a result, you have to be thoughtful about what you send. Offer something valuable in every SMS, such as exclusive discounts, appointment reminders, or important updates. This keeps recipients engaged and subscribed. Likewise, make sure every SMS contains a clear call-to-action, such as “Buy Now” or “Learn More.”
4.Choose key moments in the customer journey
Plivo allows you to set up triggers that automatically send SMS at the ideal moment you want to reach your customer. Plivo CX's Journeys feature allows you to send the right message to customers at the right time based on their activity. With Journeys, you can identify key events that trigger messages to customers. These include messages for:
- Returned orders
- Abandoned carts
- Feedback requests
- Shipment notification
- First-time purchases
Plivo CX has no-code workflows that allow you to create and optimize key messaging moments yourself, depending on your customer segments and unique buyer’s journey.
5.Complement SMS with other channels
SMS is best used as part of an omnichannel marketing strategy. Consider other ways customers might be hearing from your brand to avoid spamming them with the same message.
“Don’t treat your SMS like your email program,” said Morgan Mulloy, associate director of email marketing at Avex Designs. “Email is more of an ‘interact at your leisure’ channel, whereas SMS is intrusive. It’s literally at the palm of your customer’s hand. SMS is not the ‘blast every day’ channel. It’s the ‘quality over quantity’ channel.”
If you send an email, SMS, tweet, Instagram post, and a LinkedIn InMail with the same message, your audience will get irritated — fast. Be selective about how you’re utilizing SMS and save it for urgent, timely campaigns.
What are the key SMS marketing laws?
Regulations governing SMS marketing vary significantly between countries and change regularly. It’s worth doing some research or consulting with an expert to make sure your campaigns are compliant with the most up-to-date rules.
In the US, SMS marketing is governed by the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA). This regulation requires companies to get explicit consent from recipients before sending marketing messages. You must provide clear opt-out instructions and abide by restrictions on sending times (generally between 8 AM and 9 PM).
In the EU, SMS marketers need to meet the guidelines of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Like the US, this rule requires explicit opt-in consent as well as easy opt-out mechanisms. It also requires companies to provide clear and detailed information about data usage.
India-based SMS marketing is governed by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). These rules are slightly more involved: for instance, campaigns must be registered on the Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT) platform. Sender IDs must be registered with the TRAI, and promotional messages are only allowed between 9 AM and 9 PM.
Ultimately, all of these examples aim to protect consumers against spam and fraud. Following general best practices, such as easy opt-in and opt-out, sending messages during normal business hours, and avoiding inflammatory content can ensure your messages never get blocked.
How do you build an SMS subscriber list?
Building an audience takes time. The best SMS subscriber lists grow organically — proving that your SMS marketing strategies are providing value and encouraging more people to sign up. When you first start up, consider these tactics for building a list of SMS marketing subscribers.
1 .Launch a text-to-join campaign
Create a keyword (e.g. "JOIN") for customers to text to your number to sign up for marketing updates via SMS. Promote the keyword across marketing channels and send an automatic confirmation message when users opt-in.
2. Choose the right moment to ask
There are ideal moments when consumers are primed to sign up for SMS. Include an SMS opt-in option at checkout (both in-store and online), newsletter signups, account creation, social media, and email campaigns. Place QR codes on product packaging, receipts, and in-store displays that link to SMS signup. Consider adding SMS opt-in options to your website popups, embedded forms, and elsewhere on your owned media.
3. Offer incentives for signing up
A great way to encourage users to sign up is to provide exclusive discounts or deals for SMS subscribers. These incentives don’t have to be expensive: Give early access to sales or new products, or position SMS as an exclusive channel for your most loyal customers.
The key to building an active list of SMS subscribers is clearly communicating the value of joining your SMS list, obtaining proper consent, and making the signup process seamless across multiple touchpoints.
What are the best platforms for SMS marketing?
There are tons of platforms on the market that offer SMS marketing tools, but Plivo stands above most for a few reasons.
Plivo's Premium Communication Network (PCN) is a global system for sending voice calls and text messages. We work with over 1,600 phone companies in more than 220 countries and territories and carefully choose only the best phone companies to work with.
We have six main connection points around the world. This helps us send messages and calls quickly, no matter where they're going.
To make sure our service is reliable, we connect to at least two phone carriers or operators in each country. This does a few important things:
- It makes messages and calls go through faster.
- It helps avoid delays.
- It gives customers the best possible connection.
Having multiple connections also means that if one phone company has a problem, we can quickly switch to another. This helps keep our service running smoothly and maintains good quality.
Learn more about Plivo’s comprehensive SMS API, built to programmatically send and receive text messages globally.
Get started with SMS marketing today
Flight Vector’s CEO Scot Cromer says that “SMS is the future. If you don’t provide a texting solution, you’re going to be left behind.” Fortunately, getting started with SMS marketing doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Plivo’s SMS API Platform offers a suite of tools that help you create and launch personalized text campaigns easily — and it’s free to sign up.
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