Does Text Marketing Work?

So you’re thinking about using text marketing.

But you wonder…

Does text marketing work? Is it something that actually brings real results?

We’re so confident that text marketing works, that we provide a 30-day money back guarantee on all our SMS platform subscriptions.

In this post we’ll go over a few of the reasons why we’re confident that SMS marketing works, and why you can expect real results.

But first, let’s define the terms…

Text message marketing is a form of direct marketing that uses text messages to promote products and services.

It’s a powerful way for businesses to reach their target customers quickly and directly—allowing them to offer tailored offers, rewards, deals and promotions right in the palm of their customers’ hands.

Since this type of marketing engages with people on a more personal level (in their texting inbox), it often yields higher read rates and higher response rates than traditional forms of marketing.

Text marketing can be implemented in many forms:

• Deals
• Promotions
• New product updates
• Announcements
• Customer follow-ups
• Loyalty program notifications
• Other customer engagement

The most compelling reason to use text marketing is the incredible read rates.

Compared to emails and other forms of digital advertising, the open rates for text messages are far superior—98% compared to 20%.

PLUS, the average user checks their smartphone 47 times per day, and the younger crowd (ages 18–24) checks an average of 86 times per day.

If we divide that number by 16 waking hours in a day, we come up with an average of 5–6 times an hour. That’s a lot of phone checking!

All of that visibility makes texting worth considering as a marketing strategy.

High read rates and high visibility mean that a greater percentage of your audience will actually see your message and be exposed to your brand.

Additionally, text marketing can be cost-effective as it requires fewer resources than email campaigns or making a print advertisement.

And since it has such a high read rate, texting also doesn’t require as large of a recipient list in order to be effective.

Here are 6 pros of using text message marketing.

1. Texting Is Personal

We alluded to this previously, but texting is much more personal than almost all other forms of marketing (except perhaps phone calls).

Texting reaches people right in front of their phones, on their personal devices that they constantly check at all hours of the day.

And they’re receiving this message in the same inbox that they use to text their spouses, friends, parents, and family members. (Unlike email, for example, which is being used less and less for personal communication.)

Hence, texting enables you to reach customers on a more personal level, where they actually are. That personability opens up a lot of potential for helping customers really connect with your messages.

2. Texting Encourages More Engagement

Since texting is more personal, people feel more compelled to read and engage with the content within the text. They’re more likely to follow your CTAs, and even more likely to send over a personal response.

In particular, you’ll see a greater percentage of your customer audience clicking your links.

This greater sense of engagement opens up a new realm of possibilities to do things like:

• Give your customers a positive personal experience that will help foster greater loyalty
• Get more sales and upsells with messaging that really resonates with your audience
• Send follow-ups and check-in messages to help make sure your customers are as happy as possible

3. Texting Cuts Through the Noise

People are drowning in a sea of marketing emails. Social media is full of advertisements too.

Texting is one of the few avenues that actually cuts through the noise so it won’t get ignored.

Why?

Because it hasn’t been quite as saturated yet. People’s texting inboxes aren’t full of unwanted promotional material like their email inboxes are.

That means that when you send a text message, it stands out much more than an email or social media ad would. Which leads to the next point…

4. Text Marketing Is Still Relatively New

While it’s true that text marketing is being more and more accepted, it still feels like a relatively new concept. Not everyone is doing it yet—at least not on the same level as, say, email marketing.

It’s difficult to find hard numbers on how many businesses use text marketing, but it seems to be around 40%, less than half the percentage of email marketing which is 82 worldwide.

The relative “newness” of text marketing means that now’s the time to jump into the channel, before it possibly gets inundated in the same way that email marketing has. You can take full advantage of the potential of SMS marketing while it’s at its peak.

5. Carrier Regulations Mean Texting May Never Become White Noise Like Email

Related to the previous point, texting has not yet become “white noise” like email largely has. And the good news is that texting may actually never get to that point.

That’s because text marketing is monitored and regulated by the mobile carriers (Verizon, AT&T, Sprint, etc.). They require brand registration and they actively filter out spam messages, which makes it difficult for spammers to get a foothold in the channel and ruin it for the rest of us.

In addition, on a side note, people are more guarded about giving out their phone numbers than their email addresses, because they’re concerned about being spammed. So if they’ve given you their phone number, that likely means they are actually interested in what you have to say and they won’t ignore your message as “white noise.”

6. Texting Complements Other Marketing Channels

Texting can be a great complement to drive traffic to your other marketing channels.

Running a sales webinar? Send text reminders and follow-ups to drive up attendance and conversions.

Hosting a promotion or event on social media? Send text notices with a direct link to the social media page.

Have an important email to send? Send text notices letting people know to check their email.

Using texting as a complementary tool in this way will help make all of your other marketing channels as effective as possible as well.

In light of all of these pros (and more), the answer to the question “does text marketing work?” is a clear yes.

(And that’s why we’re confident enough in the power of texting to give a 30-day money back guarantee on all purchases.)

Although texting has several pros that make it a no-brainer for marketing, there are a few cons to keep in mind.

Being aware of these will help you be more informed as you go about your texting efforts, so that you can be as effective as possible in your SMS marketing.

1. Texting Has Character Limits

An SMS text message can _technically _have a maximum of 160 characters.

That doesn’t truly mean you’re limited by the character count, however. It just means that if you reach that character limit, your message will count as 2 or more messages instead of 1.

Furthermore, most smartphones are “smart enough” to detect whether your long message was meant to be a single unit. So phones will actually concatenate split messages into a single block. (This just means the phone will combine the split message into 1 when it delivers the message.

And you also have the option of sending your messages as an MMS (multimedia message), which allows you to attach an image and to include up to 1,550 characters. (Note that this type of message will use up more messaging credits to send.)

2. People Are Less Understanding of Irrelevant Messages

Since texting is a more personal means of communication, people are less patient about receiving unwanted messages than they are with email or other marketing channels. So if they receive messages they didn’t ask for or that aren’t relevant to them, they’ll be more likely to opt out.

But that just means you want to make sure your messages are relevant and timely (which you should be doing with all of your marketing efforts anyway). So as long as you’re sending messages that actually pertain to your audience, this shouldn’t be an issue.

Plus, this also means that you’re not wasting time and money sending messages to people who don’t actually care about them.

3. Not Following Carrier Guidelines Could Result in Non-Delivery

We mentioned in the “Pros” section how mobile carriers like Verizon are good about monitoring SMS for spam.

This regulation of text marketing also means that you want to be careful to follow their regulations, so that your messages don’t get flagged as spam incorrectly.

But don’t worry! It’s not too difficult. There are a few guidelines you can follow and you should be good to go:

• Register your traffic with the mobile carriers: doing this just requires filling out a simple form which Mobile Text Alerts provide to you within the platform
• Only text people who want to be texted : this goes without saying, but if you don’t want to be flagged as spam by mobile carriers… don’t send spam
• Identify yourself and provide opt-out instructions: we would recommend that you include both of these things in every single message you send
• Stay away from public URL shorteners: the mobile carriers don’t like the inclusion of links from public URL shorteners like Bitly, so stay away from using those; instead, you can use custom-branded URL shorteners (Mobile Text Alerts provides you with our own branded shortener you can use to shorten your links)
• Don’t send questionable content: “questionable” is loosely defined but generally includes anything related to sex, hate, weapons, controlled substances (including alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, and CBD), loans, gambling, “get rich quick” schemes, and (obviously) anything against the law
  • You can still send content related to some of these things, as long as it’s legal—but check with our support team for the best way to go about it so that you get the best message delivery
  • (A good rule of thumb is that if your content has the potential to be questionable, check with our team before starting your campaign)

These cons are good to be aware of, but are workable and still allow you to take advantage of the benefits of text marketing for your business.

Text message marketing is beneficial (and is used) for virtually all types of businesses—from one-man operations to small local companies to large corporations.

Have an existing customer base? Great! You can get their information loaded in and start sending them texts right away.

Starting from scratch? Great! You can collect customer contact info using options such as “text-to-join” or an online sign-up form.

Want to use it to send mass updates on a promotion you’re running? Businesses use it for that.

Want to use it to engage customers in 1-on-1 conversations? Businesses use it for that.

Want to use it to stay in touch with your team regarding staff meetings, announcements, or reminders? Businesses use it for that too.

Here are some specific examples of businesses and organizations that use texting:

• Banks
• Boutiques
• Cafes
• Churches
• Coaching businesses
• Construction companies
• Dentist’s offices
• Direct sellers
• Distribution companies
• Doctor’s offices
• Government agencies
• Gyms and fitness centers
• Hair salons
• Hospitals and medical centers
• Libraries
• Manufacturing companies
• Municipalities
• Nail salons
• Parks
• Real estate agencies and agents
• Restaurants
• Retail
• Schools
• Stock alert businesses
• Transportation businesses
• Universities

The bottom line is that you’d be hard-pressed to find a business/organization that couldn’t use texting.

(Here’s a list of 75 text message examples from 15 different industries, in case you need ideas.)

So, in response to the question, “Who should use text message marketing?”—the answer is… you.

Setting up a text message marketing program is easy and straightforward.

The first step is to create an account with a text message marketing provider like Mobile Text Alerts.

You can do a free trial to get a feel for how things work first… or you can jump right in with the security of a 30-day money back guarantee, ensuring you can get a full refund if you’re not satisfied.

Once you have an account set up, you can add in your own phone number for testing and send a few test text messages to yourself to see how to use the platform/mobile app.

Then, depending on the state of your business and what your goals are, you may be able to just load in your customer list right away. You’d do that through uploading a spreadsheet or by connecting with your current services via integrations or API.

Otherwise you can start growing your text list via a few different opt-in methods:

• Text-to-join, which allows users to subscribe to your text list by texting into a particular phone number assigned to your account
• An online web form, which allows users to subscribe by filling out a customize form online
• Automatically-generated QR codes, which allow users to subscribe by scanning the code

When you’re ready to start sending messages to your customers, you can schedule the messages for the appropriate times. You can also set up automated messaging flows or message replies to trigger according to specific responses your users stand in.

Yes. Based on the high read rate of texting and all the other pros mentioned above, text marketing works.

Furthermore, every business can and should take advantage of texting to help them engage customers and grow.

(And remember, we’re so confident that text marketing will work for you that you get a 30-day money back guarantee on all subscriptions.)

So with a free trial and a 30-day guarantee, what have you got to lose?

Try it now.