The power of text messaging is growing — especially SMS messaging for business. Despite predictions from 2011 when some experts said SMS would die in the coming years, not only it didn’t die, but it eventually grew stronger. The reason for such dark predictions lied in a growing number of mobile apps, but SMS proved to be resistant. Now, in 2017, we can hear new voices saying that SMS will grow from $55.49 billion to $71.60 billion by 2021 while mobile app installation will face a serious drop down. Having this in mind, more and more marketers are turning to SMS marketing.

With more and more new digital channels available for promotion, it is tough for small businesses to reach customers with their marketing message. Although possibilities for promotion are almost limitless nowadays, this enormous amount of advertising and promotion have forced people to become “blind” and much smarter in a selection of tools to avoid them. Smart marketers had turned this absurd situation in their favour when they decided to use some of the almost forgotten or underestimated communication channels. We are speaking about SMS and SMS marketing. What can small businesses do with SMS more efficiently than with other digital channels? Here is the list of our suggestions.

Text messaging, or texting is a form of direct, personal communication that enables you to get in touch and make very close contact with your customers, staff, and suppliers. No other communication channel provides such closeness between a brand and its consumers, because SMS enables enterprises to communicate with people in a highly personalised and responsive way. Portio Research Ltd, an independent research company that provides high-quality reports on the mobile and wireless industry, has even declared SMS as the “king” of non-voice communication because of its 6 main qualities

The first question that usually comes up when you try to make a connection between SMS marketing and B2B business model is the following: Is SMS marketing suitable for B2B companies? Unlike B2C (business-to-consumer) companies focused on selling products directly to consumers, B2B is a business model in which companies are doing business with each other. B2B companies are selling products or services to other companies.

Almost all mobile phones, regardless of type or ‘smartness’, have one thing in common – SMS. Some estimates say that there are more than 4.5 billion SMS enabled devices in the world today, which makes texting a valuable communication channel among people. Other stats also say that 98% of SMS messages are opened and read within 3 minutes of receipt, a much higher rate than it is the case with emails, especially emails used in marketing purposes. To make it clear, the percentage of emails which get opened is just 22% (in average), which proves that SMS marketing has a much better performance than email marketing.

The world of SMS is full of acronyms that might confuse you, especially if more than one term is used for the same thing. So, we decided to help you learn this specific language. Being familiar with SMS industry jargon is half the battle. We’re starting with MO vs MT messages. Industry experts and professionals often use these two terms. What do these acronyms mean? Let’s start with the MO message.

Although we witness a serious rise in popularity of Over-The-Top (OTT) instant messaging apps like WhatsApp, more than 50% of WhatsApp users still think that SMS will always be an essential form of communication for them. And more importantly, OTT messaging services don’t allow users to send messages in bulk which puts SMS on the top of the list of the most useful marketing tools.

Mobile marketing has proved its importance. Today more and more companies and brands are using mobile marketing to reach out to customers and keep them in the loop. The most commonly used mobile marketing tactic is SMS marketing. It is the oldest form of mobile marketing simply because the first mobile phones in the 1990s were able to send/receive only the SMS. So, marketers had just this one tool available to use – hence the SMS marketing was born. But, mobile technology progressed tremendously, and today mobile phones have so many different capabilities that we can freely say we are carrying small computers in our pockets. Nevertheless, SMS marketing is still the most popular form of mobile marketing because it’s easy, cheap, fast and provides great ROI.

SMS marketing is a perfect business choice if you want to communicate with your customers/audience in a fast, efficient and inexpensive way. There are more than 6 billion mobile devices in the world today. SMS reached more than 3 billion people using these 6 billion devices. This means that SMS is ruling the mobile market and is the most used tool on smartphones, despite mobile development with an abundance of mobile apps and easiness to access and browse the net on a mobile phone.

Bulk SMS is a very useful and effective marketing channel that should be an integral part of any mobile marketing strategy that tends to achieve real success in today’s mobile world. As we all know, mobile phones are ruling our digital world, so mobile-focused marketing has become a focal point of every strategic marketing planning. Mobile marketing is a huge must for every business that wants to keep a competitive edge over their competitors and maintain advantage within the industry.