SMS Marketing is Simply Hard to Beat Glamorous it isn’t, but as an advertising medium, sms marketing is simply hard to beat.
As a marketing consultant and advertising agent, I have never been particularly wild about sms marketing as an advertising tool.
It was probably RCI’s incessant sms messages that put me off the medium initially. I hadn’t asked for them, and yet, as someone who had timeshare with the company, RCI obviously thought it had the right to send me whatever specials it had going. Go Banking was another repeat offender. Having all sorts of companies sms-ing me all sorts of stuff was, in my eyes, an invasion of my privacy – and I’m sure there were thousands of other people with similar views.
Admittedly, my attitude towards the advertising medium has changed somewhat. I still don’t like being inundated with sms messages, but now at least I understand the power of the medium, and as an ad agency, it’s one of my client responsibilities to advise as to what is working in the market.
My eyes were opened last week after attending a presentation by a leading bulk sms provider to find out exactly what it was about this marketing tool that was finding traction with so many advertisers. I now know.
In a nutshell: sms marketing can now enable marketers to reach pretty much every one in South Africa in one go. There are in excess of forty three million cellphone users in this country, and nearly all these cellphone numbers are on this company’s database. And unless they have opted-out from receiving sms messages, you, as a marketer, are entitled to sms them.
Now, this alone, makes bulk sms one powerful advertising medium; more powerful than TV advertising, more powerful than radio advertising, more powerful than outdoor advertising, more powerful than newspaper advertising, magazine advertising or pretty much any other form of advertising you’d care to mention.
What’s more, one can now demographically segment the type of people you’d like to reach via their cellphones, and which way.
To give you an example: you’re the marketing manager of Willards Batteries, and you have fifty branches around the country. You’d like to reach every motorist within 5 kilometers of each branch. But you’d like to segment the market further: you only want to sms those motorists who earn more than R20K per month. And who own cars older than 5 years. Done. Simple as that. No problem.
The secret of successful sms marketing is in the briefing. Tell the bulk sms provider what you’re looking to achieve, and what budget you have available, and they will be able to draw up a proposal for you. Clearly, the better the input, the better the output.
The presentation I attended threw up some interesting statistics: more than 90% of sms’s received are opened and read. (Think about it; you get an sms, you’ll look at it. You may not read the whole thing, but you’ll open it to see what it’s all about. Compare that with receiving an email; if it looks like spam, you’ll promptly hit the delete button). The next thing I found enlightening was the response rate from a bulk sms send: it can range from 0.8% up to an outstanding 14%. Why the disparity? It depends on the offer. (If you send an sms asking people if you can give them an insurance quote, you’ll more than likely get a minimal response – but if you ask if you can quote them on their insurance whilst offering them the chance to win a holiday for two in Mauritius, you’ll clearly increase your chances of hearing from them). It’s all about making the offer enticing, and providing an incentive. In this way, the message is as important as the medium. What was also of interest was the fact that there are four times more cellphones in South Africa than television sets, so four times more people can be reached; the fact that sms’s are sent out at the rate of 1 000 per second, and the fact that on their database (which covers more than 200 countries) they have the cell phone number of every cellphone user in Germany.
Used correctly, bulk sms is a winner. Today, many companies use sms marketing successfully. Insurance companies like Hippo, Auto and General and Old Mutual send sms campaigns on a monthly basis. As do banks like Standard Bank, ABSA and FNB. Motor dealerships have also bought into the medium, as have restaurants, furniture outlets and franchise owners.
Whilst companies with large marketing budgets will look at sms sends of up to a million per month, smaller companies can test the waters with an initial send of perhaps twenty thousand – so it’s by no means an advertising medium out of reach to those with limited advertising budgets.
Remember however that sms marketing is a business-to-consumer marketing tool. If your business targets other businesses, bulk sms is probably not for you in that there are other media platforms better suited for the purpose.
The rule of thumb in bulk sms marketing is: ensure that the offer is enticing (and relevant), that your message is legal and complies with the Consumer Protection Act (by having an opt-out option), that you segment your market carefully, that you send your sms campaigns out at the right time and that you work through a reputable bulk sms provider with a large and accurate database (and one that offers detailed delivery reports).
The latter, that you use a respected bulk sms provider, is very important. (You don’t want to be dealing with some fly-by-night who can’t prove to you that your sms messages have been sent, or, for that matter, received by your database!!!)
Follow the guidelines and you’re sure to reap the rewards.
As mentioned previously, I personally don’t like receiving sms’s, but as an ad agency, I do acknowledge that there are few advertising media out there than can rival bulk sms for efficacy and results. Glamorous it ain’t, but in this economy, it’s sales you’re after, not kudo’s.
