All about Promotional SMS: Their Uses and Business Benefits

SMS marketing promotes a company's goods and services through text messages sent to mobile operator subscribers. This tool enables businesses to inform active and potential customers about:

• assortment updates;
• seasonal promotions and sales;
• personalised discounts;
• mass branded events such as exhibitions, presentations of new products, tastings, and company birthday celebrations.

Using advertising messages can enhance brand awareness and foster trust with the target audience.

Advantages of Advertising SMS

Text messages sent to mobile phones stand out as one of the most effective advertising tools. Their advantages encompass:

1. Wide Reach. Over 5 billion people worldwide incorporate mobile phones into their daily lives, a number continually on the rise.
2. High Open Rates. Research from The New York Post reveals that individuals check their smartphone correspondence up to 80 times a day. Gartner further reports that over 90% of people open all received SMS within the initial three minutes of delivery.
3. Impressive Conversion Rates. SMS links boast a click-through rate of approximately 45%, with 14-15% of user visits to company websites culminating in a purchase.
4. Reliable Recipient Reach. Even if momentarily out of network coverage, individuals will receive a text message upon reconnection.
5. Internet Independence. A standard text message requires only a mobile connection, often available in areas without Wi-Fi or global network access.

An additional advantage of promotional SMS is brevity. Standard text messages comprise a maximum of 160 characters in Latin or 70 characters in Cyrillic, conveying the essence of the commercial offer succinctly.

Rules for Creating Advertising Messages

The employees of Decision Telecom, a company specializing in SMS marketing, recommend the following principles when creating text messages:

1. Register an alpha name for the company. Ensure that the person can immediately identify the sender of the message. A mobile phone owner can receive up to a dozen SMS from different businesses in a day. If you want people to buy from you, they need to be able to identify you.
2. Segment your target audience. Address the pains of each segment by considering factors such as gender, age, occupation, location, etc. It's impossible to sell to everything and everyone at the same time.
3. Break up your text into paragraphs. Avoid presenting a solid wall of letters and numbers that no one wants to read. Visually separate each new thought from the previous one.
4. Personalize your messages. Establish rapport and build trust by addressing users by name. Avoid sending a generic template message to all users.
5. Make promotions, discounts, sales, hot offers limited in time. Motivate spontaneous purchases by setting time limits. Everyone wants to get the product or service they need at the best possible price. You can also use limits on the number of promotional products, free seats, etc.
6. Always end the message with a specific call to action. Clearly ask the recipient to take action, whether it's visiting the site, ordering at a super price, or taking advantage of a buy 2 for the price of 1 offer. A person is more likely to take the desired action if you ask for it.
7. Include hyperlinks to your website and social media pages. Even if the SMS contains the address of the web resource, make it clickable. If it's not clickable, few will manually type it into Google to see the range.

Avoid creating messages solely based on existing templates: Experiment and be original. What doesn't work for your competitors can bring sales to you if presented correctly.

Rules for Sending Promotional SMS

It is not advisable to send messages to individuals who have not previously consented to receiving SMS from you. Such messages can prove bothersome, potentially leading to your company being labeled as a spammer and subsequently blocked.

Preparation of a contact database is essential:

1. Utilize the registration form on the website. Encourage individuals creating a personal account on your official web resource to provide their phone number if they wish to receive notifications regarding promotions, sales, and new products. Those interested in such offers will readily respond to the request.
2. Employ the newsletter subscription form. Offer potential customers a 10-15% discount for subscribing to your SMS newsletter. The prospect of saving money is a powerful incentive for many individuals.
3. Leverage promotions. Encourage people to participate in prize draws, quizzes, and other events. Create a registration form that participants must complete, seeking permission to periodically send promotional SMS from your company.

Sending SMS messages will not yield the desired results if the messages are dispatched at inconvenient times for recipients. Promote your messages when your target audience is most active. For the majority of customer categories, the optimal time to receive SMS is between 09:00 and 19:00.

Festive SMS Sending

Holidays, such as St Nicholas Day, Christmas, New Year, and Valentine's Day, represent a prime time for sales. Many individuals deliberately add items to their online shopping carts, anticipating discounts to secure purchases at a favourable price.

To maximize your company's profits, consistently engage potential customers. Position your brand ahead of competitors, making your establishment the preferred choice for their desired purchases.

Implementing a holiday SMS-mailing strategy involves the following steps:

1. Two weeks before the event, dispatch a message showcasing available promotional offers. Clearly state the discount's validity period or highlight the limited availability of promotional items.
2. A week before the holiday, present a curated selection of themed gifts. Encourage subscribers to explore the range of gifts suitable for friends, colleagues, and family by following the provided link.
3. Extend holiday wishes to your customers in a congratulatory message, accompanied by a personal promo code for a discount. Ensure the code has a limited validity period to prompt immediate use and prevent customers from overlooking the benefits.

Should you have any additional questions, please reach out to the sales department at Decision Telecom. Our specialists will offer detailed advice on SMS marketing opportunities, elucidate the advantages of integrating advertising text messages with multimedia messages in Viber and WhatsApp, and assist in configuring an effective mailing strategy for your customer base.