What Is Online SMS?

Online SMS is a mobile technology invented back in the 90’s and not much has changed with the technology itself however due to the sharp upward curve in mobile usage this old tech has become more and more relevant making it a powerful marketing tool for business.

Here are 6 reasons why businesses should be using online SMS to generate more leads and sales.

 

High Open Rates

98%. Yes, that’s right. 98% of people open their SMS messages which means virtually every one you send a marketing message is going to open and consume your offer!

Even in 2020 with all of the current marketing channels available none of them come close to this in terms of engagement.

When was the last time you had 98% of people like or share your post, open your email, click on your ads?

 

High Click Through Rates

Open rates are critical but it’s no good if no one actually responds to your messaging, right? Well, SMS has anywhere from 15-32%+ open rates which when compared to email (1-3% click through rates) it’s not hard to see the obvious revenue generating potential.

According to Campaignmonitor.com when it comes to email marketing, “For every $1 spent, email marketing generates $38 in ROI.” That’s amazing but what if you were using SMS? Just based on the math alone, you could be looking at multiplying that ROI many times over.

 

No SPAM Filters

Have you ever wondered why only 20% of people open your emails? SPAM filters.

Did you know that there are over 400+ words (most are everyday words) that could potentially trigger the spam bot to throw your email into the SPAM folder?

SMS isn’t an online tool so there are no SPAM algorithms to block it which means close to 100% delivery rate!

 

No Ad Blockers

Running display banner ad campaigns are expensive, but even worse is the fact that a lot of people have ad blocker technology inside their web browsers which means your ads are wiped out before the page is fully loaded.

With SMS there is no technology like this to prevent text messages being delivered.

 

No High Ad Costs

One of the major frustrations with companies that run pay per click advertising campaigns is that every year the cost per click goes up making it more expensive to acquire customers.

SMS is one of the very few industries where costs have actually come down making it one of the cheapest ways to promote solutions.

 

You Own The Platform

Remember when Facebook strangled organic reach to 1% – yes, now you can expect to get 1% of your overall audience to see your posts!

Facebook is now pay to play but even then they have loads of rules around what you can and can’t say with business owners accidentally getting their ad accounts shut down and then having to spend weeks trying to get them up and running again.

Other social networks will follow suite eventually.

You don’t own the Facebook platform so you are at the mercy of their terms.

Every ad network has their own rules and policies, most of them make sense but still every rule generally reduces campaign performance.

You don’t own the ad networks or the websites that your ads show up on so you’re at the mercy of their rules.

Email providers (in an attempt to stop spammers) block most email campaigns from getting to the inbox.

Even though you built that email list, you don’t own the email provider and so you need to get used to the idea that most of your emails will get sent to SPAM.

With SMS you own your list of subscribers, there are no strict ad policies or SPAM folders you get 100% access to everyone on your list – the only requirement is that you use an opt-out option on every message so people can unsubscribe.

 

Conclusion

Online SMS comes with a lot of benefits out of the box like high open, read and click-through rates as well as not being an online ad platform it dodges all of the typical challenges that online marketing has to deal with including SPAM, ad blockers, algorithm updates, ever increasing cost per click prices, policy changes and strict advertising rules to name a few.

On top of that online SMS is very easy to use and most people can use it right out of the box.

With the increasing number of mobile phones being used and SMS being one of the most popular social channels online text messaging will be around for a while.