Text Marketing - Why it Outperforms all the Traditional Marketing Forms

Today's retail and service sectors are starting to see more and more text marketing campaigns and this is set to continue into 2011. From tyre centers to launderettes and from supermarkets to furniture stores, text marketing is becoming an essential marketing and advertising tool which companies dare not ignore.

There are many obvious advantages to running this type of marketing campaign over more traditional methods, but here are what I consider to be the top six.

1. Open Rate and Response Rate

Statistics don't lie. Text messages have a 98% open rate. Mobile coupons and special offers sent by text message have a redemption rate of between 5% and 15% as compared to 1% and lower for traditional coupons. If you want your marketing message or special offer read and used, then text marketing out performs all others with quite a bit to spare.

2. Low Cost and High Return on Investment

Commercials, print ads, sponsorship and outdoor advertising can all be cost prohibitive for many bar those with lavish marketing and advertising budgets. Text marketing however has such low set up and running costs that campaigns can be launched and executed for a fraction of costs associated with the more traditional marketing channels.

With the cost effectiveness and high response rates of text marketing campaigns, there are simply no other marketing mediums out there that can touch it for return on investment.

3. Speed and Flexibility

We now live in the fast moving information age where circumstance and environment can change on a daily if not hourly basis. The modern business must be flexible and adaptable to keep pace with the change and so must their marketing campaigns. As there is virtually no lead time to text message marketing, campaigns can be conceived of and delivered to their target audience in a matter of minutes. Whether it's driving footfall on a slow day or clearing stock before months end, the speed of a text message cannot be matched. Text marketing allows businesses to immediately respond to the events of the day or to a competitor's special offer almost instantaneously.

4. Highly Targeted

The days when marketers could send out marketing messages into the ether in the hope that they would land on their target consumer are over. For any company with even one eye on costs it's now essential that every marketing and advertising campaign they run is highly targeted. Marketing messages sent by text message are sent directly to the pockets of their target market and are opened within minutes and sometimes seconds. In addition to this, as these subscribers have already opt-ed in to receiving these marketing messages they are much more likely to purchase than the recipients of other types of marketing messages.

Traditional marketing took the carpet bomb approach where as text marketing takes the sniper approach. As a result of this no other form of advertising can compete with text message marketing when it comes to reaching the most highly targeted audience.

5. Intimacy and Personalization

Your wallet, your house keys and your mobile phone - these are the only things that you never leave home without. The mobile phone is probably the most intimate object that a person owns in the fast moving information age and few electronic gadgets have become as close a part of our daily existence than our mobile phone. Because mobile phones are such a personal part of our world, this form of mobile marketing has the potential to create a uniquely powerful impact on the recipient. Text messages can be personalized to the recipient and delivered to their pockets within seconds; no other form of marketing can achieve this level of intimacy and personalization.

6. People Want Offers

It's not essential that every text marketing campaign contains a special offer but the most effective generally do. In a recent survey 70% of consumers said they were happy to receive marketing text messages provided they were invcentivised and in control. According to another survey from the National Consumer Agency, 30 per cent more people are using coupons than in 2008 and mobile coupons have a much higher redemption rate. Now more than ever before people are demanding value and actively searching for deals and special offers. There is no quicker and easier way to deliver those special deals to consumers than through a text message.

So there you have it, my six biggest reasons why I believe that text message marketing out performs all the more traditional forms of marketing.

Brian Stephenson