2024: Is SMS Marketing Obsolete?

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People ask a lot of questions these days regarding the current effectiveness of SMS marketing in the face of other digital marketing channels. In this post, we will give our clarification to clear the air on the mind bugling misconceptions.

It is true that nowadays business owners can be overwhelmed by the number of channels out there for marketing their products and services. Much of the focus involves modern marketing techniques on the internet such as SEO, social media, content marketing, Facebook Ads, Google ads, WhatsApp and other online marketing communication tools. However, you don’t have to limit yourself to these. It makes many people ask: Is SMS Marketing Obsolete?

In the buzz of mobile marketing, instant messaging and proximity technologies, SMS is staying in the spotlight. Just take a look on a search engine to see for yourself.

Most Customers Still Don’t Use Smartphones

Actually, if you look at the current state, the way we receive or send texts, nothing has changed. You don’t need a smartphone costing hundreds of dollars to receive or sent texts. A N5,000 phone reads and replies texts the same way a N200,000 iPhone does.

In fact, with so many businesses today concentrating their efforts online, you can often gain an edge by seeking out creative offline-online marketing techniques which is Bulk SMS Marketing.

People Read SMS Faster than Email, etc

SMS Marketing is a very efficient alternative to email and social media as one of the biggest advantages of text messages is that people read them far more often than emails. In fact, 98% of text messages are read by the recipients, 90% within 3 minutes of receipt.

The time when SMS used to be merely a medium for individuals to have a casual chat is long gone. Today, businesses are more considerate about the true potential of this rediscovered messaging medium. They are looking at new ways to harness its true potential.

SMS is far from becoming obsolete, in fact, businesses increasingly switching from a pure email based marketing to a mixed bag. SMS is now the medium for reaching masses. Businesses of different sizes now use SMS as a security tool for identity authentication, one-time password (OTP), etc.

SMS, and the way we use it, will keep evolving at its own pace. Only time will tell “How”. In the time being, let the end users be the time bearers. Presently, any ecommerce company that refuse to integrate the use of SMS as part of their business armor is heading to failure.

Most Customers are Still Offline

One thing you need to know as an entrepreneur especially in Nigeria is that over 60% of your customers are still offline and the best means of reaching them is through SMS.

Perhaps one of the secrets of SMS is indeed its brevity: 160 characters, like a tweet (more or less) but quiet, direct and without the sense of over-saturation found with message boards, inboxes, walls, etc.

How Old is SMS Marketing?

SMS now has 25 years of history and although its golden age came to a close in the 1990s, it has retained some special features that distinguish it from other channels: first and foremost, its one-to-one communication potential. An email may end up in the trash without even being opened, and a Facebook post can easily be ignored with a simple scroll. The features of SMS, on the other hand, mean that they are opened in 98% of cases. Many messaging platforms like 2go, bbm, etc have come and gone but SMS still stands the test of time.

What will happen when the sending volumes increase and SMS boxes become just as crowded as email inboxes? This means that the channel will have reached full maturity and awareness. And as this awareness gives rise to experimentation, SMS Marketing will evolve even further to increasingly refine the resources at its disposal.

Conclusion

SMS marketing is not obsolete even in the face of many other messaging channels such Facebook, Twitter, WhatsApp, etc. In fact, statistics show that the amount of people who send and receive text messages is predicted to rise to 5.9 billion by the year 2025 globally.

Comment below to give your opinion on whether SMS Marketing is obsolete or not.