SMS marketing


What is SMS Marketing?

SMS marketing is a strategy based on sending SMS to a wide audience worldwide. SMS marketing is effective for all kinds of businesses as it helps to achieve various goals in a short period of time.

Check out seven tips below to generate more sales with a robust SMS marketing strategy.


SMS Marketing

Why use SMS marketing?

  1. Global reach
  2. High level of interaction
  3. Multiple opportunities for usage
  4. Fits business of all sizes
  5. Instant contact with users
  6. No rebounds
  7. Works best in combination with other channels
  8. No special skills required

Among the reasons why marketers consider SMS marketing essential, you will hardly find any weaknesses. Here are some main factors when choosing SMS marketing:

Global reach. With five billion people on mobile, SMS marketing offers huge opportunities to engage your audience, limited only by creativity and phone number list size.


Global Reach - Example

High level of interaction. People check cell phones 80 times a day; for this reason, SMS marketing campaigns show a significant open rate.

Multiple opportunities for usage. Businesses use SMS marketing for advertising, alerts, notifications, reminders, password confirmations, contests, news, product information, etc.

First businesses of all sizes. Huge companies like banks, travel agencies, airlines, healthcare providers, etc. are using SMS marketing as a tool to reach the masses. At the same time, a small business uses it for a local audience with more precise goals on a smaller scale.

Instant contact with users. It usually takes 3-6 seconds to deliver an SMS campaign. Speed ​​is a fundamental factor in the effectiveness of SMS marketing.

No rebounds. Unlike email marketing, there are no bounces during SMS marketing campaigns. Even if the mobile device is out of range or switched off, the SMS will reach users after the phone reconnects to the mobile network.

Works best in combination with other channels. SMS marketing goes hand in hand with email marketing and web push notifications. Savvy marketers create a combination of these channels to achieve their goals and sometimes automatically send SMS to duplicate the message that email didn't deliver.

No special skills are required. Creating SMS campaigns is very easy. It takes about five minutes to build one.

How much does SMS marketing cost?

The pricing of SMS marketing varies among different SMS providers. Three factors influence SMS prices:

Location. Prices vary depending on the country you send SMS to.

Channel. The cost depends on whether you send SMS to your native or foreign country. It is called the national or international channels, accordingly.

Sender’s name. The laws of some countries require registration of the sender’s name. Unregistered sender’s name allows only 11 symbols.

We allows sending SMS campaigns at the speed of 200–500 SMS per second on 800 networks in over 200 countries around the globe.

How to Do SMS Marketing?

  1. Create an SMS campaign
  2. Fill in the name of the sender
  3. Insert text
  4. Choose the recipients
  5. Launch the SMS campaign
  6. You can start SMS marketing with me .

Step 1: Create an SMS campaign

Use the "Send SMS" icon on any page in the top right corner of the site header.


SMS campaign - Example

Step 2: Fill in the sender's name

It can be up to eleven characters including spaces. Only Latin letters are allowed.


Sender's name - Example

Step 3: Insert the text

The length of one SMS is 160 characters. Personalize the message with variables. Different subscribers will receive a slightly different SMS based on personal information such as name, gender, country, etc. You can preview how your SMS ad looks on a mobile phone on the right.


Insert the Text - Example

Step 4: Choose the recipients

Select one of your mailing lists or type in one number per line manually. Enter recipients’ phone numbers in the international format. Use segmentation to tailor messages to more specific groups of people.


The Recipients - Example

Step 5: Launch the SMS campaign

You can send the message immediately or schedule it for the most convenient time and date.

Here’s a more detailed instruction on how to do SMS advertising.


SMS campaign - Example

SMS Marketing Automation

We allows you to use SMS marketing as an integrated part of your automation. You can send SMS to users who have never opened an email, and duplicate information in SMS that are more likely to be opened.

You can also create an automation flow that consists only of SMS. Here is an example of what it might look like.


SMS marketing Automation - Example

SMS Marketing Best Practices:

  1. Sign in to phone contacts
  2. Make time-sensitive offers
  3. Implement personalization
  4. Write an original text
  5. Segment your audience
  6. Send SMS when convenient for users

Sign in to phone contacts. Do not send an SMS campaign without the consent of the recipients. This will do more harm than good to your business because people don't expect news from you; it will only irritate them, so use the SMS login approach instead.

Make time-sensitive offers. Add an element of urgency mixed with unique value. It's a strong incentive to involve customers in your design.

Implement personalization. Customize your SMS marketing to give your audience a more enjoyable experience. Personalization is the key to building trusting relationships with customers.

Write original text. The length of the SMS is 160 characters. You need to be flexible enough to promote your product and attract consumers. Be as brief as possible and use every word to the point.

Segment your audience. Using segmentation, you can send slightly different messages to different groups of people based on similarities such as gender, country and location, sales funnel, etc.

Send SMS when it's convenient for the user. Find out when is the best time to send an SMS campaign to reach more audiences. Don't interrupt people when they are most likely busy or sleeping.

SMS Marketing Examples:

SMS marketing is a tool for multiple purposes. Let's find out how businesses are using it to fulfill their needs.

Restaurant. SMS marketing is an essential tool for growing loyalty among customers by providing discounts from time to time.


Sport clubs. As such, companies can announce games, confirm bookings, do competitions for fans, offer discounts on goods.


Airlines. SMS marketing is useful for sending flight reminders, ticket suggestions, news about new destinations, etc.

Benefits of SMS Marketing:

As more and more brands seek to target customers on the go, SMS is becoming an increasingly important part of effective multi-channel marketing. However, with several digital marketing agencies incorporating SMS as a core offering, their clients are potentially missing out on customer communication and increased ROI.

Organizations mistakenly believe that mobile marketing requires heavy investment in apps and does not allow for personalized, targeted communications and lacks strong analytics to support ROI. The reality is that accessing mobile communication is much easier than it seems, and gaining access to mobile consumers (smartphones and other phones) can be as simple as sending a personalized, targeted text message. A means to encourage two-way texting between a company and its mobile users is essential to building the brand in households around the world, provided that consumer privacy is protected by legal opt-in requirements.

In this post, we summarize the key findings from our latest whitepaper, which we explain in our webinar about the benefits of using SMS in your marketing mix, and discuss why SMS should be used in the communication mix, as well as how it can be used. as part of a multi-channel strategy for interacting with customers throughout the customer lifecycle.

It’s a direct, immediate channel

SMS is one of the fastest channels available; with a 97% read rate within 15 minutes of delivery, you can be sure your time-critical messages will be read almost instantly. A significant 45% of SMS campaigns generate a successful ROI that reaches more than 50% when combined with other popular channels such as email and social media.

You can use shortcodes to simplify response and build your database

Let your customers take the first step by adding a shortcode or keyword to print materials, ads and billboards, and social media. This strategy means that customers will soon become familiar with the brand code and keyword and therefore more likely to interact and respond.

It can support and integrate with other channels

It's important that all channels work well together as part of the marketing mix, and SMS is no exception. SMS is a great standalone channel, but it also has the ability to enhance and support other marketing media such as social media and email.

In addition to being great in their own right, SMS can also work to enhance and support other popular media among consumers, such as social media and email.

For example, they can serve to remind customers to read an email sent by a brand hours or even days in advance. A simple follow-up SMS asking “have you read our email? can help increase email open rates by 20-30%.

You can learn more about your customers

 SMS is a great channel to get customer feedback through surveys. Research shows that on average 31% of consumers respond to a survey via SMS, with the average user response time being just over 5 minutes. This means that you can achieve great results in a short time.

You can increase customer engagement

Think of SMS as a way to improve your brand's interaction with your customers throughout the customer lifecycle. Businesses should remember to vary the type of content they send – while customers may appreciate updates and news about upcoming brand developments, this information is best delivered via email, where longer, more creative messaging is more appropriate.

Although marketers may feel that texting is invasive, many consumers are now familiar with texting when using local services such as dentists, garages or hairdressers, or public services such as the NHS. This is a great example of the NHS engaging their audience in what is undoubtedly a highly engaged opportunity!

In addition, brands can use text messages for more immediate, anticipated sales-related offers such as vouchers, discounts, promotions or even birthday messages.

Response data enables you to monitor, track and improve:

Tracking meaningful ROI, identifying customers engaged via text, and tracking delivery speed are all possible through SMS, debunking the reality of the misconception that SMS is an untrickable channel and bringing it more in line with what was possible with by email for years.

Using these analytics, businesses can create more targeted campaigns and continually better understand their mobile database. Not only does this mean they save money and improve ROI, but by profiling and segmenting the numbers least likely to respond, SMS allows companies to target these customers via email or another channel.