An increasingly popular mode of marketing tool, SMS marketing allows for easy communication with consumers. With a single message being used to reach the entire customer base, it is cost-effective and also saves time.
A rapidly growing industry, SMS marketing has become a marketing tool with enormous potential. Short messages of 140-160 characters in length, SMS allows messages to be sent to a large number of recipients in a few moments. It is this reach and ease of reach of the app that makes it a powerful tool for advertising and product marketing.
Being increasingly adopted by more and more business houses as a preferred mode of marketing tool, SMS marketing has several advantages and disadvantages.
Advantages
Ease of Reach – Also known as mobile marketing, through this app, marketers can use a single message to communicate with their entire customer base. Instead of personally contacting each customer as in telemarketing, in mobile marketing through mass messages, an advertising message can be distributed to several consumers at once.
Personal communication: SMS has become the most popular mode of communication today and most of us use it to communicate with our friends, family and acquaintances. Unlike an email or newsletter, almost all messages sent on a mobile phone are usually read by the user. Being an extremely personal mode of communication, you can establish direct contact with your customer, building on the relationship.
Inexpensive in nature – Instead of spending millions on multiple ad campaigns, a single message can be used to reach all consumers, drastically reducing marketing costs. With falling SMS prices, thousands of text messages can be sent through bulk messaging at wholesale prices.
Time Saver – An instant mode of communication, marketers can communicate with their customers whenever they want. As most mobile phone users keep their phones with them at all times, time sensitive messages can be sent through quick messaging and responses can also be tracked.
Disadvantages
Spam messages: Bombarding cell phone users with repeated advertising messages does more harm than good. These frequent spam messages annoy, irritate and frustrate users who develop a negative attitude towards the companies sending the messages, which negatively affects their brand.
Cost to recipient: This is not the usual way to send messages, as SMS marketing mobile phone networks charge both the sender and receiver of the messages. These additional charges often irritate recipients and create a negative image of the company sending the messages.
Message Limitations: Since messages are limited to 140-160 characters, it becomes difficult to create an effective message within such a short word limit. In addition, additional information in the form of hyperlinks may not always be correctly received by the user’s phone.
While there are some drawbacks, its reach and profitability make SMS marketing a lucrative option as a marketing tool.