An increasingly popular mode of marketing tool, SMS marketing enables easy communication with consumers. With a single message that is used to reach the entire customer base, it is cost effective and also saves time.
A rapidly growing industry, SMS marketing has emerged as a marketing tool with enormous potential. Short messages of 140-160 characters in length, SMS allows you to send messages to a large number of recipients in a few moments. It is this reach and the ease of reach of the application 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 the same time.
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 that are sent on a mobile phone are generally read by the user. Being an extremely personal mode of communication, you can establish direct contact with your client, building on the relationship.
Economical in nature: Instead of spending millions on multiple ad campaigns, a single message can be used to reach all consumers, dramatically reducing marketing costs. With the fall in SMS prices, thousands of text messages can be sent through bulk messaging at wholesale prices.
Time Saving – 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 express 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, negatively affecting 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 the receiver of the messages. These additional charges often irritate the 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. Also, the user’s phone may not always correctly receive the additional information in the form of hyperlinks.
Although there are some disadvantages, its scope and profitability mean that sms marketing a lucrative option as a marketing tool.