Top 5 reasons to leverage SMS lead generation

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SMS is an ideal way to generate leads for businesses. And there are lots of reasons for that. It’s one of the most affordable marketing mediums available with low-cost investments generating truly impressive ROI. It has a universal reach, accessing customers without Internet connections – a huge benefit over mobile messaging apps. No other advertising platform can virtually guarantee that your message will be read by your customers the way SMS can.

For those considering the benefits of SMS in generating leads, here are some facts to consider:

It has nearly universal reach

Mobile is having its day in the sun, particularly texting and mobile messaging apps such as Facebook Messenger, Viber and WhatsApp. Mobile phone usage is nearly at saturation point, while smartphones are still working their way up.

A prediction for the number of mobile users worldwide by 2017 is 4.77 billion. And the forecast for smartphone use by 2020 is 6.1 billion. About 70% of the world’s population will have mobile subscriptions (smartphone and basic mobile phones), totalling 9.2 billion.

Texting is the only mobile marketing medium that can reach both smartphone and regular mobile phone users. And, while the Internet is expanding globally, satellite telephone connections seem to be more universal and more reliable than Internet connections. Therefore, text messaging has the widest reach globally compared to any other mobile marketing channel.

It has unbeatable open rates

There is no other method that comes close to SMS in terms of reach and reliability. And that goes for their open rates as well. Clients can easily skip over a social media or mobile app push notification that appears briefly on the screen and then disappears. Emails are rarely even opened and when they are, it may be long after the event or promotion you were advertising took place.

Texting is immediate, with nearly 100% of texts being opened and 93% of them being opened within 3 minutes of being received. You’re pretty much guaranteed that at least the first step required for lead generation, reaching your customer, is covered with SMS. In addition to the open rates, texting has another benefit. It puts the power of decision in the customer’s hands.

Customers respond better to text messages, which they can read and respond to in their own time, than to phone calls, which arrive at unexpected and possibly inconvenient times. This case study on MaidPro, a cleaning company, shows how text messaging yielded better results than their phone calls attempts.

Bottom line: Both current and prospective customers have high response rates to texts.

Texting loyalty programs increase conversions

An example is zPizza, which ran an SMS campaign offering sweepstakes and cash prizes for joining their zTribe loyalty program. They increased their SMS database by 5% with this campaign and had a 106% conversion rate improvement.

Kiehl’s started a mobile marketing campaign to build a customer database over 6 months, offering three location-based text offers per month for those who opted in. Their accounts showed that 73% of the customers who opted in made a purchase after receiving a message and 81% filled out a texting poll to provide Kiehl’s with customer feedback.

Customers respond well to texting loyalty programs. These programs help increase your customer base and generate new leads for your business.

It has great ROI

There are a lot of success stories out there about SMS. The reason they’ve made so many headlines is because the ROIs on the campaigns have been truly impressive. Of course, you’ll have to make some investment, but SMS works very well when campaigners use it intelligently. In other words, SMS can work great with a low-cost investment.

Carl’s Jr. offered a special deal to customers who opted in to their SMS program of a burger and fries combo for $2.99 (normally priced at $6.00). This allowed them to gain $14 in sales for every $1 they spent on the campaign. Not bad.

Dunkin Donuts revived some of their failing stores with an SMS campaign that they advertised through online ads and radio. The campaign rewarded customers for sharing the text offers with their friends. By encouraging sharing and word-of-mouth in their promotion, they leveraged their spending on their SMS campaign and managed to provide sufficient incentive that 17% of those who received texts forwarded them and 7,500 people opted in to their loyalty program. The result was a 21% increase in store traffic. Impressive results.

Perhaps the best thing about SMS is its low cost. It has generated some spectacular revenue for its users, at fractions of the cost of a traditional ad agency.

It’s easy to integrate with other marketing campaigns

Text marketing makes for seamless integration with your other marketing platforms. If you’re running a promotion for an event or sale, you can easily share links to mobile websites, videos and social media posts via text. You can also convert emails into text and vice versa, making it easy for you to maintain contact with your email and SMS clients without having to repeat the message.

Also, companies that advertise their SMS campaigns through their other advertising platforms (social media, website, mobile app, email, radio, television, in-store signage, etc.) have the most success with growing their SMS customer databases.

Texting’s versatility makes it an ideal platform to launch an all-inclusive marketing campaign.

SMS is a low-cost and effective lead generation strategy, which allows you to reach a wide range of consumers quickly and easily. It’s been proven to increase in-store traffic and boost sales. Text messaging is popular with both businesses and customers. If you need to generate more leads for your business, know that SMS is worth investing in.