The Facts of Text Marketing

In today’s ever changing economy, most people have a general idea as to what text marketing is; but what about those who don’t? Text marketing entails marketing on or with a mobile device, in most instances a cell phone. Text messaging technology enables users to communicate in a nonsynchronous manner, where messages are stored in the network and delivered to the recipient as soon as the recipient’s mobile phone can receive it. Once delivered, the message resides on the users’ mobile phone. These days’ media publishers are using this type of marketing to distribute mobile content, including advertisements, to particular recipients. The simplicity of text message marketing is astounding. All a media publisher needs is a phone number, and the delivery of an advertisement can be a click away.

But How?

Certain programs and technologies can be used to relay a message to the recipient. One of the top programs being utilized is Opt-It. Opt-It is a cost effective text message marketing application that helps businesses communicate with consumers. It allows businesses to build up a consumer database of mobile phone numbers, and send out certain types of marketing materials to these numbers. To expand such databases businesses implement the use of keywords. Consumers willing to distribute their phone numbers have the opportunity to text a keyword to a certain number; in return they are added to a specific database. These databases can be categorized by the keywords chosen by the business. Once a keyword has been used, it cannot be duplicated or used by anyone else. Technical aspects aside, after being added to the database, consumers are willing to receive notifications of events, deals, and other marketing ploys. At any point the consumer can opt-out of the notifications. As the business’ database increases, the cost of the service rises as well. There are certain price points in which a business can decide to spend an allocated amount of money. For instance, if a business believes it will have 850 recipients in its database, with the potential of 100 or so more, it may want to apply for the 1000 message price point. At this point, a business can have up to 1000 recipients in their database that can receive notifications. As the size of the database increases, the price of the service goes up as well. With an expansive database of consumers, a business has the option to choose an unlimited plan. This allows them to have an infinite number of subscribers in the database in which they can receive notifications. Once a database of numbers has been created, the business simply has to type their message, click a couple buttons, and off the message goes to all recipients in the database. It is a really easy way to connect with a variety of consumers at one time. For such a small fee, a business can have a flabbergasting retention rate based on a simple text message.

Any More Benefits?

As if affordability isn’t enough, text marketing has a few more advantages. Text marketing is easily measurable. The delivery of text messages can be tracked, and campaigns can be monitored in real time. This particular type of marketing is extremely effective. Not only are results easily measurable, but consumers opt-in to receive marketing messages; they trust the business as a messaging source which makes them highly qualified sales prospects and more likely to respond to your message. These messages are sent instantaneously to consumers, making them even more effective. The potential of text marketing is endless. It crosses all demographics, locations, and allows the user to venture to new and improved markets. It allows businesses to reach consumers that are not easily accessible through traditional marketing. The final benefit to text marketing is the retention rate. By having a positive campaign, the use of text marketing will create an exceptional retention rate, thus far outweighing the costs. By providing consumers with a “deal” every month, businesses keep consumers interested in their products and services.  As an easy tool, these are just a few of the benefits of text marketing.

There has to be a Few Inadequacies?

Indeed, like most marketing campaigns, text marketing does have a trivial amount of deficiencies. After time, some consumers that have subscribed to the text marketing services get irritated by the bombarding of text marketing messages. This certainly does more harm than good. Some consumers will consider the messages spam, which may send a negative attitude towards a business and even their brand.  Another downfall to the scheme of things is that the size of the message used for marketing purposes is limited to a certain amount of characters. Most cell phone carriers limit the number of characters to 160. With this number so low, it can sometimes be difficult to create an effective message. Although there are a couple of disadvantages to text marketing, the advantages clearly seem to outweigh them.

What to do now?

After having an idea of what text marketing ACTUALLY is, utilize it to its fullest. Text marketing is a new trend in today’s economy. More and more businesses have taken advantage of the numerous incentives that text marketing has proven to provide. It is an affordable and creative way to get your message to consumers. By implementing text marketing in a campaign, it will not only create results, it will set you apart from your competition. Text marketing will be an essential part of our everyday lives in the future; if it isn’t already. Go ahead, try it out.