SMS Marketing and How It's Used Effectively

Short Message Service (SMS)

Seeing as the majority of people today have mobile phones, it is unsurprising that marketers have found a way to to implement them into the ever-growing marketing opportunities there are today. Although the question lies as to whether companies are using SMS marketing too much, or in some cases are companies not using them enough? Instead of finding a happy medium. It is clear that some industries bombard us with constant messages that we don't want, whilst there's companies that still haven't tried to capitalize on this growing marketing tool. (Brown, J et al, 2007)

It is clear to see why SMS marketing is such a popular marketing technique, as the statistics speak for themselves; with 98% of messages being read and the average response time being only 90 seconds. Comparing this to Email marketing which has an average response time of 2.5 days (Davey, 2013). Although during the uprising of SMS marketing there was the view that they were just constant spam messages with no real relevance to the target audience. Shuli Lowy, marketing director at Ping Mobile directly answered this question by saying “The SMS industry has come a long way in diminishing spam and improving relevancy, however, we all still bare the scars of a dark past time when unsolicited and intrusive text messages were rampant in the kingdom of mobile”(Kats, 2013).

Marketing Target

Through SMS, marketers can build a strong relationship of mutual interest between the brand and consumer, but this is only when it is used correctly. The opt-in process enables this; here consumers are only sent messages that they expressly want to receive from brands that they would like to hear from, showing how a successful SMS campaign can work.

Although there are many challenges facing SMS marketing, with many companies sending too many messages, with it being advised by industry experts to only send around three or four a month. However there are still companies that send less than three messages a month, even though the customer has opted-in to receive SMS' from them and seeing as 75% of people prefer receiving ads via SMS, it can clearly be a very effective way of marketing for the company and creating a relationship with the consumer. (Dimitris, A et al, 2013)

Ms. Lowy explained the marketing target is that, “marketers must remember that the goal is not to dangle a piece of candy in front of consumers and then trap them into a mobile relationship prison,” but “Instead the goal is to invite consumers in to engage with your brand through mobile and make sure to offer compelling content to keep the consumer interested and strengthen that relationship, but always leave the door open should they wish to leave" (Kats, 2013).

Advantages of SMS Marketing

• Since users opt-in to receive SMS messages from companies, this type of marketing pulls in a niche audience, which is keenly interested to know more about the product or service concerned.
•  Since all the messages are going out to users in real-time and are instantly delivered, companies can offer impromptu deals to their customers.This can be shown in the restaurant industry, where they can have day-to-day deals to attract more customers.
• Gathering user data is much easier by way of SMS marketing. This makes it much easier for the company to make changes to the advertising campaign, as and when necessary.
•  SMS being highly interactive, companies can keep in constant touch with users, urging them to participate in surveys, fill out questionnaires and vote in polls. 

Disadvantages of SMS Marketing

• SMS allows companies very little advertising space. The maximum limit for text messages is 160 characters. Besides, the advertiser cannot add impressive audio or animation effects to the messages. That could limit the creativity of the advertiser. 
• The same advertisement cannot be repeated over and over again, unlike TV or radio ads. Each SMS ad has to be differently worded and presented. 
•  It is not very easy to constantly engage mobile users and encourage them to opt-in to receive messages on their mobile phones. Even if they do opt-in, it is not necessary that they read every message the company sends them. 
• This type of marketing commands a very limited audience, as it is only a certain age group of people that uses texting on a regular scale. (Viswanathan, 2013)

 Examples of SMS Marketing

Walkers
In 2009 Walkers ran a promotional campaign using SMS marketing. Walkers gave away an iPod every hour to people who texted a code shown on their crisp packets. Aside from dishing out the prizes to the winners, Walkers’ campaign is interesting because they also replied to the losers. On one day, they sent the message ‘Did you know that 34% of the winners yesterday came from Barbecue Beef?’ – and the next day, 78% of the entrants came from that flavour.

Orange
Orange phone brand brought in the SMS marketing campaign, “Orange Wednesday” which gave Orange customers the perk of 2 for the price of 1 on cinema tickets when they requested a code, via SMS, from Orange, and showed it to the cinema cashier. This greatly increased customer retention and firmly associated their brand with film-going. More than that, Wednesday (which was chosen as it was traditionally the quietest day of the week for cinemas) is now so associated with going to the cinema that it is the most popular day to go outside of weekends. (Kulkarni, 2013)

Coca-Cola
Although the marketing giants Coca-Cola were sued by a customer when their SMS marketing campaign message failed to include an opt-out facility. Edelson and McGuire, who specialise in consumer protection, duly filed a class action law suit against Coca Cola for violation of US telephone laws. (Johnson, 2012)



To ConcludeLooking at all this it is clear that the power of SMS marketing is huge, but only when it is used effectively. As Ms.Lowy states, the goal is to invite consumers in to engage with your brand through mobile and make sure to offer compelling content to keep the consumer interested and strengthen that relationship and not to trap the consumer with a barrage of messages without an opt-out option, as is shown in the example above with Coca-Cola. Thereofre there is still a long way to go for SMS marketing but as long as it is used correctly it can be a great way to create a relationship between the company and consumer, which can be seen as very difficult in today ever growing digital marketing era.

References
Drossos, Dimitris A, Giaglis, George M, Vlachos, Pavlos A, Zamani, Efpraxia D, Lekakos, George. 'Consumer Responses to SMS Advertising: Antecedents and Consequences'. International Journal of Electronic Commerce. 2013 Vol. 18 Issue 1, p105-136.

 Brown, J, Shipman, B, Vetter, Ron. 'SMS: The Short Message Service'. Computer. 2007, Volume 40, Issue 12, pp. 106 - 110