Sms Advertising A Powerful Tool For Business Promotion

Every business is facing fierce competition these days. It is difficult to survive without having a powerful tool to challenge competition. One of the strongest and most economical tools is SMS advertising. Advertising your products, services or events using the short messaging service is the quickest and direct way of reaching your potential customers.

With more than 80% of population using a mobile phone, penetration through SMS advertising outstrips the PC many folds. According to available data 95% of text messages sent are opened by people compared with 30% of emails. This scenario and greater use of applications other than voice has made advertising through SMS a powerful tool for marketers. SMS advertising has brought in innovative way of doing marketing communication. Addiction of people towards SMS and its ever increasing popularity among youth has made advertising through SMS the most effective and suitable medium for advertising services, products and events.

SMS advertising is most successful because:

* It is cheaper than traditional advertising and more memorable than email.
* People read almost every message they get – unlike spam, junk mail or advertisements which are more often ignored.
* SMS prompts immediate response from recipient
* The campaign can be coupled with special offers proves to be very effective since people start forwarding SMSs to their acquaintances.
* All enquiries come from customers who are more interested and are followed up with a call.
* It leads to immediate response when arranged with 2-way SMS messaging facility.

You can make use of short-codes while advertising through SMS. These are memorable 5 digit SMS text numbers used both as outbound channel by companies for direct messaging to people. You can offer recipients choice to reply to your SMS by assigning a virtual mobile number to your own account. This virtual number will enable you to receive reply to your SMS. But in this case your prospects will have to pay the standard network charges.

You can also sign up with an SMS provider to lend you services for sending SMS advertising messages from your email or a web-based tool. This is also an economical way of sending outbound advertising messages to your prospects. Again by adding a virtual mobile number to your account you can also receive replies.

SMS messaging is becoming integral part of lifestyle of people of all ages in general and youth in particular. Growth of SMS advertising is accelerated by equally fast growth in the cellular market. While opting for SMS based advertising for promotion of your products or services or events, you can either use member database of SMS provider, or provide your own contact list.

SMS providers can tailor your advertising campaign to meet your requirements and your budget. However care must be taken comply with direct marketing legislation and data protection and privacy rules. Unsolicited SMS is treated as intrusive, illegal and can damage brand reputation.

SMS advertising is the best means of creating consumer awareness, generating high take up on offers and minimizing marketing costs.

About the author

InfoM8Direct allows you to send bulk SMS across Australia and global to promote your business's and products.