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What Is SMS Marketing

SMS stands for short message service, which is the formal name for text messaging. Like email marketing, in order to send text messages to your clients, they need to sign up or opt in to receive mobile marketing messages from you. SMS marketing is facilitated through a provider that will supply you with a unique five- or six-digit short code phone number that is dedicated to your agency. Also, like email marketing, SMS marketing cost is usually affordable and dependent on the amount of audience members you have and or the number of messages you plan to send per month. For most agencies with fewer than 1,000 contacts, you can typically start an SMS marketing campaign for under $60 per month.
 

Why Should Brokers Use SMS Marketing?

There are quite a few reasons brokers and agencies should use SMS marketing.

• SMS messages have high open and engagement rates: According to SMS Local, 90% of SMS messages are opened within the first three minutes of delivery and 98% of all SMS messages are opened and read. Compare that with an average open rate of 20%-30% for email and you can quickly see why SMS marketing might make sense for your agency.
• SMS marketing can help build loyalty: One of the most impactful components of SMS marketing is that you can personalize and send highly relevant information to your current clients in a very impersonal manner. Using SMS as a communication channel can help augment your client trust by sending messages with a personalized touch that show clients you value their business.
• SMS has also proven to be an effective way to encourage customer re-buying or account upgrades with 90% of consumers saying they prefer to receive promotions and coupons via text message (per SMS Local).
• SMS marketing is cost effective: SMS marketing is one of the single most cost-effective digital marketing tactics you can use. As mentioned above, you can typically expect to send at least one message per week to your subscriber list for under $100 a month. This creates many opportunities to see a good return on investment (ROI) based on the engagement and response rates that SMS marketing usually delivers.

3 Ways to Get Started with SMS Marketing

Here are three SMS messaging campaign ideas to get your SMS marketing program started.

1. Happy birthday text message: Everybody likes being told happy birthday! What better way for clients to keep you top of mind than as they celebrate their birthday each year. Consider adding a custom gift like a gift card for coffee or dinner to add an individualized touch. Offering discounts or access to special products or services are other distinctive touch considerations to avoid added out-of-pocket expenses.
2. An SMS message to commemorate their client anniversary: Celebrate your client’s anniversary date with your agency by sending a text message that commemorates the occasion. This is a fantastic way to remind clients of their tenure with your company while also keeping your service and value top of mind.
3. New products & services announcements: What better way to build excitement for new services and products than to formally announce them to your customers. While email works as a great channel for these announcements because of increased engagement, SMS provides a way to amplify new product launches, service offerings, or major quoting changes.

 
About the Author: Kalup Alexander is Digital Marketing Director for the Word& Brown Companies. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Media Communications and Marketing from Oregon State University and has been at Word & Brown since 2014.