SMS marketing, or text message marketing, is a marketing method that businesses can use to interact with existing customers and prospective ones.

Different online SMS platforms enable you to upload the contacts you want to reach via SMS. Once you’ve signed up on the platform, it may take a few minutes to copy and paste the list of numbers you will be working with and voila.

SMS marketing is still quite an untapped yet useful aspect of marketing. Here are ten reasons to show you why.

1. Cost-effective – SMS marketing is an affordable method of communication in comparison to traditional marketing and other forms of digital marketing. It allows for working with budgets and still having a broad reach.
2. Mobile friendly – More often than not, people are buried deep into their phones. Therefore SMS marketing is a smart way of reaching your clients where they already are.
3. Broad reach – Research shows that almost a billion people own smartphones, and most cell phone users will touch their phones nearly 2,500 times a day. Thinking about this in terms of marketing means a lot of people could potentially be reached at once. In other words, SMS marketing gives you an average of 2,500 chances to reach your client.
4. High open rate – With a higher open rate than phone calls and emails, most of the SMS sent will be seen and read quicker than any other form of marketing. Therefore, SMS marketing is the best medium to pass across important campaigns and messages.
5. Opt-in, Opt-out options – Offering customers the opportunity to unsubscribe from receiving messages from a campaign when they want, shows the credibility of the brand. With SMS marketing, this is possible, and no one will be spammed with unwanted messages.
6. Straight to the point – 160 characters allows for creativity and conciseness. Due to the character limitation, it invariably ensures that the messages will be short and precise. This will enable saying what the company is trying to say and how it’ll benefit their clients.
7. Generate leads – With SMS marketing, keywords can be set-up with shortcodes. This integration helps generate leads that are measurable and trackable.
8. Increased customer engagement – Due to the ability to get a broad reach via SMS marketing, boosted customer engagement can be achieved. Sending SMS that can spring up conversations or running campaigns that require interactions such as surveys is a great way to increase engagement through SMS marketing.
9. Easy Integration – SMS marketing is easy and cost-effective to use. Therefore it is easy to integrate it with any other marketing strategies without any disrupting the other.
10. Trackable – With online SMS platforms, trackable delivery reports can be gotten. Some platforms can provide more details on who opened the texts and when. That way, all the campaigns will be monitored, and results will help influence the next ones.

SMS marketing is a simple, yet effective medium to share promotions, thank you messages, announcements, coupons, etc. The letters being limited to 160 characters, make it easier for the recipients to skim your message at a glance and patronize your services.