Benefits of Mobile Marketing

posted by Ted on January 18, 2012

Mobile marketing SMS is a great example of a new technology providing marketing opportunities. The growth in the mobile consumer market over the last ten years worldwide has been explosive, leading to a massive target market which has proven to be responsive to marketing messages. There are twice as many active SMS users than active email users, reflecting the full extent of the marketing opportunity presented by mobile communications.

But as a business owner, how can you capitalize on this growing technology with a mobile marketing SMS marketing campaign?

SMS messages are generally treated with more interest by consumers than email marketing messages, and consequently the open rate for SMS sales messages is higher than that with email. Rather than delivering to an inbox a message that may or may not get read, no doubt amongst other emails of more importance to the prospect, delivering via SMS creates a situation whereby the interest of the prospect is immediately captured and focused on the immediate message. As a result, permission-based mobile marketing can deliver response rates in the region of 25%, versus 1-1.5% for traditional direct marketing channels. As such, it’s easy to see why businesses of all sizes are getting on board with mobile marketing SMS technologies and embracing this new way of marketing.

SMS messages, including those with a marketing purpose, are on average read within 5 minutes of receipt, and responded to within the hour, making them far more effective than most forms of communication. Unlike emails which may sit unread, may be filtered as spam or may be ignored, SMS marketing messages are to the point and are far more effective at inducing the desired action from the prospect. And with opt-in features to enable targeting and qualification of prospects, strong response and conversion rates can be seen from mobile marketing SMS campaigns across a range of different sectors and demographics.

Another key benefit of SMS messages is that they are virtual, and as such much lower cost in nature. Because there are low marginal costs to sending SMS messages, it’s easily possible to devise a mobile marketing SMS campaign that is instantly profitable. Compared to physical direct mailings, the costs of creating, storing and distributing SMS messages is minimal, leading to a cost saving and increased conversion rate. As a result, the ROI from mobile marketing is expanded on both the revenue and cost sides leading to increased profitability from the campaign.

The benefits of mobile marketing are apparent, and as a direct marketing channel it will only continue to grow in effectiveness over the next decade as technologies improve and consumers become more used to receiving and responding to SMS marketing messages. Early adopters of the technology are still just getting on board, but the results they are experiencing from their mobile marketing SMS campaigns are proving the effectiveness of SMS marketing as a medium. And with over 75 billion SMS text messages sent every month, the market is continuing to expand at an exponential rate.

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