What is SMS Marketing?
As the name suggests, SMS marketing is the promotion of some kind of business by sending short messaging services, popularly known as SMS. These SMS are usually within 160 characters, so they are really short and the wording has to be precise. There are various devices used for SMS marketing. The cell phones are certainly the most popular of these; but SMS marketing is also done through a large way on Personal Digital Assistants, Blackberries and even chat messengers.
What are the Pros of SMS Marketing?
The cost-effectiveness of SMS marketing is one of its biggest benefits. It does not cost even 10-20 cents to send an SMS to a person,
depending on the provider and that makes this method quite economical.
There is always a surety that the SMS will reach the intended people. With email marketing, there are a lot of problems such as the person may not get the email or may not access the email. With SMS marketing, this situation is highly unlikely to arise because people take their cell phones with them everywhere they go.
The instantaneousness of this marketing method is also of particular note. If the person who gets the SMS is interested in what it says, he or she is likely to take an immediate action. When marketers send out SMS to hundreds of people, they expect and get a lot of responses within 10 minutes of sending the SMS.
It is also a personal method of communication that makes the recipient feel special about getting the advertisement. In a group of friends when a particular person gets the promotional SMS and the others do not, it does make them feel privileged to an extent, sometimes to the point of taking action.
What are the Cons of SMS Marketing?
SMS can also be looked upon as spam. Recipients have the legal authority to take action against the person who sends the promotional SMS, just like people who get spam email can do.
The method is more targeted than cold calling, but still inferior to other methods used to promote businesses on the Internet. The message needs to be within 160 characters. This brings the practical difficulty of conveying the message and also to make it appealing within this short limit.
