IS SMS MARKETING EFFECTIVE?
Does text marketing work? The answer is a definite YES. The SMS marketing statistics from 2020 show the truth (more on that later).
But getLouie’s Director of Compliance, our daredevil Tracy, says it best: “Unless you follow SMS marketing best practices, it’s like parasailing—awesome and fun until it’s not.“
We here in the Content Department are afraid of heights, wind, and birds—so we will take her word for it.
But let’s take a look at what makes SMS marketing effective, some best practices, and what you need to do to avoid a crash.
Why is SMS marketing effective?
You love stats. We love stats. So when we talk about the benefits of text messaging marketing, the numbers tell a lot of the tale.
SMS marketing statistics 2021
75% of customers under 44 and prefer texting with businesses.
More than half of cell phone users read texts in under five minutes.
Most Americans have “eyes on phone” 160 times/day.
They’re also four times more likely to respond to a text than an email (wait, customers still respond to ANY emails?)
Those are great numbers, and they only scratch the service. The market has yet to get completely flooded: less than forty percent of marketers use SMS messaging. That will change soon. Last year, more than half of marketing firms upped their SMS marketing budget.
So now is the time to enter this field—especially if you’re a small to a medium-sized business owner.
WHAT ARE SMS MARKETING BEST PRACTICES?
When you consider SMS copy best practices, it’s important to remember that every business is different and has its own voice. So the concept of “best practices” will always mean the best practice for your unique marketing vision.
There are great examples of SMS marketing strategy, from charities to big businesses like Subway. SMS has arguably changed the course of our nation’s history—when an “upstart” candidate named Barack Obama leveraged a relatively new marketing tool to help win the Presidency.
We here at getLouie have a three-step process we use to establish a foundation of best practices with our clients. We help you:
Find your voice. What sets a business apart? What sets a product apart? Of course: features, quality, and price are important. But all things being equal, customers will go with the brand they feel represents their values and understands them. That kind of emotional connection comes from your unique voice, and texting is ideal for showing off your distinct story.
Target your audience: knowing who you want to reach is just as important as knowing your business.
Bring your audience in. The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) covers a lot of ground. When it comes to text messages for businesses, the TCPA is very clear: your customer must opt into the phone number you are sending text marketing campaigns from. We will help you with your SMS marketing strategy to build your contact list.
That last one is more important than you may know, because if you run afoul of the rules, there’s a harsh penalty for an SMS face plant.
AVOID A CRASH
As more businesses adopt text messaging as a marketing strategy, the Federal Communications Commission has started cracking down on spam and unwanted texts. Much in the same way that it combats robocalls and other annoying modern-day tech, the FCC is working to create legal mechanisms to stop unwanted texts and educate consumers on how to stop them (including clear directions on how to file a complaint).
What happens if you don’t follow the rules and a complaint is filed? If the lawsuit against you is unsuccessful, you’ll be shelling out between $500-$1500 per message.
For a small business owner, that’s a lot of money. But that’s for just one message. If you make a mistake and send it to multiple customers multiple times, then get your calculator out. You get fined for every message.
How quickly can that add up? Consider the gut-wrenching case of Jiffy Lube. They had to pay 47 million dollars for one text message—a discount offer to customers—because the company didn’t follow TCPA rules.
Eesh.
Even worse: if you use a text messaging service and they break the rules, you’re not protected. You will be responsible for the fine—not them.
So let’s avoid these pitfalls with the answer to this question:
WHAT IS THE BEST TEXT MESSAGING MARKETING SERVICE?
OK, we’re biased, but that doesn’t mean we’re wrong
The best text message marketing service is getLouie.ai. Besides operating at the same high level of functionality as other top services, we have a distinct approach that outpaces our competitors.
“Tomorrow” tech: we built our platform around AI-based technology, and it continues to evolve every week. Our platform allows you to work faster, connect on a more emotional level, and the platform does more of the messaging so you can focus on your day-to-day operations.
Price: For our high level of service and solutions, we are by far the most cost-effective solution on the market. Couple that price with personalized service, and we have a company we are all proud of that benefits the people we care the most about: business owners like you.
Support: We offer our partners both 24/7 tech support and personalized creative support. We will help you set up your system and find your company’s voice to take full advantage of our platform.
And finally, we return to back our Compliance Department. Before we even started building getLouie, they knew that the rules were changing rapidly, and those changes would put you at risk.
We are experts in the TCPA. We modify and create guardrails automatically through the platform, all to protect you from those fines. Along with huge companies like AWS, getLouie is a Campaign Service Provider with The Campaign Registry (TCR), the central hub for registering A2P 10DLC messaging campaigns.
Tracy spends her time tracking the FCC and changes to the TCPA so that our platform is always up to date. And she still para sails every other month. She’s never crashed. We trust in her, and your business can as well.
