Tag Archives: marketing

SMS Marketing

5 reasons why you should be using SMS marketing over Email

SMS Marketing
SMS Marketing

Email is usually the medium of choice for marketing. Most people find that they receive a couple of marketing emails daily and ignore quite a few of them. Or they spend their lifetime sitting in an inbox, with the ‘intention’ of being followed up on. But that never really happens.

SMS, on the other hand, remains a much more intimate way of getting in front of your target audience. It’s usually a quick message from a friend or family member. With more and more people using their smartphones for their everyday business, people tend to look at their phones much more than they will look at their emails.

SMS marketing campaigns have increasingly become a quick and cost-effective marketing platform. And when you look at how audiences respond to SMS marketing, you may be surprised to see how well it competes with email. Let’s look at some of the main advantages of an SMS marketing campaign, compared to an email marketing campaign.

SMS can reach more people than any other platform

Email can reach anyone with an internet connection, but what about those who don’t have access to it? Of the 7.5 billion people in the world, less than half, which is around 3.7 billion have access to the world wide web.

Mobile phones are a very different story.

According to GSMA real-time intelligence data, there are now over 9.01 Billion mobile connections worldwide, which surpasses the current world population of 7.67 Billion implied by UN digital analyst estimates.

Just think about it, people may have one or two mobile phones and generally use them every day. It’s not uncommon on the other hand for people to have a couple of email addresses, some of which are rarely used. They might use just one regularly, meaning your marketing messages may be getting lost in transmission.

Mobile phone figure stats
Mobile phone figure stats

Higher open rates for SMS marketing

Common sense can tell you that people are more likely to open an SMS than an email. According to a new research study, Americans check their phones an average of 80 times a day while on vacation, with some checking their screen more than 300 times each day.

Opening your inbox and finding five or six marketing emails can make you unlikely to click any, especially if you have lots of other emails coming in for other reasons.

Email marketing can prove difficult when people receive so many emails. An SMS, on the other hand, is so short that most people will take the time to read it. Recent research showed that the average open rate in the UK for emails was just under 25% while estimates for SMS marketing in recent years state that as many as 98% of phone owners open an SMS message, usually within a few minutes of receiving it.

Higher click-through rates for SMS

The data also shows a much higher click-through rate for SMS messages compared to emails. The most recent research shows that email marketing tends to generate a click-through rate of around 4.2%, compared to 36% for SMS messages. When you work that out, that means around one in every 25 people will click-through when they get an email, compared to one in three for an SMS. SMS is a much more effective way of driving potential customers towards your website.

Quality Over Quantity

As people’s email inboxes take in more and more messages for all angles, the chances of your email sitting there unnoticed are quite high. This means that email marketers tend to send quite a lot of emails, hoping to eventually catch the attention of their target with one or two.

For SMS, you know the open rate and click-through rate is high, so you have to work on crafting one or two good messages. That’s simple too as you only have a small number of characters to fill. You just put the most important information in your text and get right to the point straight away. Campaigns that adopt SMs marketing often prove to be much cheaper than email marketing campaigns.

SMS is Cheaper

It’s a much cheaper medium, as you are sending out fewer campaigns. It should also be more cost-effective, as a high click-through rate should lead to some sales. This means the SMS campaign should soon pay for itself.

They also take much less time to create. You don’t need to worry as much about the design as in an email. You also don’t have to worry about how it will appear on different devices. InstaGiv can help your charity create SMS marketing campaigns that work. We work with more than 300 charities to help boost their fundraising with SMS. To find out more, check out our Services page or Contact Us.

SMS comps

Top Tips for your SMS Campaigns

We have brainstormed and came up with our top four recommended tips for your SMS campaigns. These tips will help your charity in the long run between gaining an extra 25p per pound donated by adding Gift Aid, to increasing your supporter base by enabling consent and gathering opt-ins.

First things first…

Customise your Response Message

Grab the fact that you get to create your own response message by the horns. The bounce back SMS goes straight to the donor’s handset after a donation is made, this is in place to allow you to thank your donors, you get 160 characters to use so we try to encourage our clients to use up this space wisely. Perhaps also say something like “check out how your donations help”, with a URL to your website, this, in turn, will help drive more direct traffic to your charity’s website. Remember, people tend to read and digest the contents on an SMS received to their phone.

Add Channels

Adding channels to your campaigns brings the benefit of knowing which of your marketing channels are working best for you. You have a number for every marketing channel that you have your text code and campaign advertised. Allowing you to analyse your inbound report and view which channel is reaching the biggest audience and drawing in the most donations. If you are spending your budget on paid ads or expensive advertising, channels are perfect for measuring success.

Enable Gift Aid

Our Gift Aid tool allows you to collect names and addresses from your donors. We have two GA collection methods for you to choose from, both of which records and stores all declarations on your platform. You can then view down downloads this information at any time to send to the HMRC for processing. Enabling Gift aid is recommended as you can claim an extra 25% per one pound that is donated to your charity.

Enable Consent

Add the consent feature to your campaigns, this is where you can gather opt-ins from your donors and supporters. InstaGiv has two methods that you can choose from; Implicit and Explicit. With both, all consent records and stored on your platform where you can easily view and download them. Consent is user-friendly and straight forward, for example, rather than having your donor’s text KEYWORD to donate, ask them to text KEYWORD, YES to donate and opt-in- simples!

SMS marketing

The Growth of SMS

It’s no surprise that SMS has grown significantly over the last number of years with the massive growth of technology and smart phones.

Almost everyone owns or has access to a mobile device of some description. For many of us, our phone is like an extension of our hand – we physically could not live without it! (I know I couldn’t).

SMS is the one sure way to get your message across effectively. Almost all texts received to a handset, have an open rate of 100%.

We wanted to find out for ourselves

An online survey was recently carried out by our team, with participants across the age ranges of 22-50+ on the use of SMS and mobile technologies.

We will be creating an e-guide will all of our stats collated together and analysed to give an insight into the world of SMS and peoples preferences.

SMS is actively used by many businesses and charities to market their message across to their audiences.
I remember when I first started to receive such communications from businesses.

It was from my dentist, reminding me of the date and time of my upcoming appointment. I instantly thought to myself how handy that was! If you’re like me, you often forget things and are trying to organise yourself at the last minute, so this reminder text was perfect.

Why use SMS as means of communication or marketing?

The list of reasons why is endless but to name a few;

  • Its personal
    The recipient will open and read the text
    There is no junk/spam box on a mobile phone
    Texts are short, sweet and to the point
    It doesn’t cost a lot and is very effective

SMS within business

Text messaging in the business sector is commonly used for brand awareness, offer discounts, reminders, events, lead generation and notifications.

The charity or not-for-profit sector most commonly uses outbound for;

  • Support for petition
    Rallies for last minute disaster appeals
    Event sup ups
    Gathering opt-ins
    Gathering contact details
    Donation requests
    Advocacy
    Cause awareness

SMs is a great all-round tool for anyone wanting to raise either cause or brand awareness and for those who want to get their message out there instantly.
Our upcoming e-guide will outline SMS in a more detailed fashion, giving you the inspiration to go for it.