An Introduction To Sms Marketing

By Author: Salvatore Andrea
Total Articles: 6244
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SMS marketing is one of the fastest growing areas of direct marketing. Although relatively new compared to other options available to marketers, when used correctly if can be effective. SMS marketing or Short Message Service uses text messages to deliver your communication.

It is a flexible marketing channel and enables marketers to deliver the same or segmented marketing communication to some or all of their customers. It relies on clean data, the mobile phone number, being provided by the customer or prospect. Before communicating using this method it is vital that customers or prospects have opted in to receive marketing materials via this channel.

SMS marketing can be deployed in house, using software tools, or via a specialist third party who have agreements with the mobile phone providers to deliver bulk messages via SMS. Not surprisingly this method has been adopted by most of the mobile phone operators as an effective marketing tool. However its usage has expanded beyond the obvious brands and is often used by service based companies like dentists, doctors, hairdressers and restaurants as a cost effective ...
... marketing tool. Sending out appointment reminders to customers or patients helps reduce cancellations and increase productivity.

This marketing method can also be used to drive footfall to retail stores on a local level. Customers with loyalty cards can be alerted to new collections, special openings and other events which offer them a value added experience. SMS marketing allows quick deployment so is excellent as a marketing tactic to drive short term sales.

As with all marketing campaigns it's important to test different promotions thoroughly before rolling them out to larger customer segments. bulk sms marketing offers real time measurement and provides marketers with good analysis. These results can then be used to roll out nationwide or even internationally depend on the campaign objective.

Successful SMS marketing campaigns are integrated with the rest of the marketing mix. Messages need to be concise and relevant to achieve good response rates. Unlike other marketing channels this offers little room for waffle! Strong and simple messages will work best and short codes are available to give trackable codes for specific campaigns.

Before embarking on an SMS marketing campaign it is important to be clear of the campaign objective. Speaking to service providers will offer best practice advice about how to measure, deploy your campaigns effectively. Remember test, test and test again.