SMS stands for Short Message Service, and can benefit your business in a multitude of ways. When you sign up to receive text alerts or promos from a business, that’s SMS — and smart businesses use it as a part of their overall marketing strategy to get and keep valuable customers.
Let’s take a look at why you’d do well to consider adding SMS to your marketing.
- High open rates. General open rates for email marketing regardless of industry range from 15-25%, with horticulture or the home & garden industry emails enjoying a healthy open rate of about 22%. Now, that rate is going to vary depending upon which study you refer to, but that’s a general benchmark. Contrast that with SMS open rates of 90% or higher and you can easily see why this is such a valuable way to connect with your audience.
- Immediate delivery. Most people read text messages within minutes of receiving them, which is ideal for time-sensitive information like announcements, promos, and flash sales.
- Wide reach. Even though most people have smart phones, nearly any type of mobile phone supports SMS, enabling you to reach a broader audience regardless of what type of phone your customer has. Major score!
- Simple and direct. SMS messages are concise and easily scannable — your customer can tell with a glance what you’re offering them. In a world with media that competes for attention, this is invaluable. All you need to include are the basic pieces of information necessary to get your message across, and you’re off and running.
- Flexible for a variety of marketing applications. Got a daily promo? A flash sale? A holiday offering? SMS is the way to go. Want to remind a customer of an appointment? SMS can do that. Need to let your entire audience know of a special announcement? Easy peasy with SMS.
Because it’s such an easy way to communicate with your customers, you might be tempted to ditch traditional email marketing in favor of SMS, but we’d advise against that. Think of SMS as a tool in your overall marketing strategy rather than a “one and done” kind of thing, and here’s why:
- Not everyone wants a text message from a business.
- Some people really like to read more in-depth content via newsletters and longer emails.
- SMS cannot include everything your business has to offer because of its shortened format.
- It’s always wise to give your audience multiple ways of hearing from you to increase your chances of them working with you, buying from you, or shopping in your store.
If you don’t have the bandwidth to get this going on your own, please give us a call! Katie and the team really love creating effective SMS programs for our clients, and we can help you, too. Schedule a free 15-minute call with Katie here to talk about what you have in mind:
