Most of the person looks at their phone multiple times in a day. SMS is read more than any other form of digital communication. 90% of text messages are opened within 3 minutes. Through SMS Marketing, we can quickly inform the target customers about any deals and discount, exclusive messages, latest information etc.
What is SMS Marketing?
“Advertising or promotion through SMS is called SMS marketing.”
SMS marketing is an easy way to quickly reach more people at a lower cost. It’s cost effective. Text message works faster than social media. It’s the fastest way to reach business. SMS marketing becomes a very good way to communicate. There are Two types of SMS Marketing – i) Outbound Campaigns [these messages could be promotional or transactional] and ii) Inbound Campaigns [customer send SMS and businesses replies (auto) to the message].
The limit for SMS is 160 characters. If you want to send long messages then you can send but after every 160 characters it will be considered as additional message.
For your information there is 70 character limits for other languages like Hindi, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Punjabi etc. Outbound type is commonly used in SMS marketing. So here we will discuss about the promotional and transactional messages.
Promotional SMS:
Promotional SMS is used to promote business, send offers or send general messages. Any deals, discounts, latest offers or general messages come under promotional sms. By using this we can inform our target audience about new offers, discounts, deals, brands, products or services. You can only send promotional messages between 9 am to 9 pm. In promotional route you will not be able to send message people whose number is DND active.
Transactional SMS:
The transactional route is used to send only important messages. The messages we receive from the bank regarding account debit and credit come under the category of transactional messages. You can send a transactional message 24 hours a day to any number, whether DND is active on their number or not.
Messages are sent in two base, first SIM base and second operator base. The SIM base consists of a ten-digit mobile number and the operator base or Sender ID is of six characters. You can create a sender ID on your name or brand name in the operator base. As per TRAI rules, you can create an alphabetical sender ID of only six characters.
You cannot use the Sender ID of others brand or organization like RBI, SBI, Amazon etc. It is worth noting that you have to take advantage of this service by following the rules, if you do something wrong then action will be taken against you.
How Do We Choose SMS Gateway?
We can send SMS from our mobile phones but there is a limit of 100 SMS a day which is not enough for any type of promotion. SMS contributes a lot to build brands. With a good SMS gateway we can send bulk messages to millions of people in one click. Bulk SMS are important for lead generation and to increase sales in large quantities.
Before selecting any SMS Gateway, you should know its set up cost and per SMS cost. The cost of per SMS also varies between promotional and transactional messages. If you have software, there should be API (Application Program Interface) availability to integrate with your core software. Service level agreement in terms of delivery rate and how fast messages will be delivered, MIS reports, customer support etc.
You can use MSG91 or Textlocal SMS Gateway for your SMS Marketing Campaign. This is a good SMS gateway that gives accurate results. Apart from this, there are many SMS gateways, by searching on Google, you will find many popular SMS gateways that you can use.
How SMS Marketing Can Help You to Increase Sales?
Always send messages during business hours. Use easy language and don’t write short forms. Make sure that the first line of your SMS is interesting to see, so that your target customers can decide whether to open the message or not. You can send 1 or 2 promotional message per week instead of a lot of messages. This will not cause any problem to your target customer and will increase the loyalty level of your campaign. This is a good way to increase customer numbers and sales.
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