Advertising With Traditional Media Is Dead – SMS Marketing Can Revive Your Business

Times are changing and no longer can small businesses place an ad in their local newspaper and see any kind of noticeable results. Our population is changing and with it, so is the way that we need to be marketing our businesses.

Technology has killed traditional media and has made advertising with it as good as dead. The biggest killer is of course the internet. The World Wide Web has led to the drastic decline of most print media such as, but not limited to; newspapers, magazines and even the phone book. People want their information differently these days. They want their news short and up to the minute. The old forms of media cannot provide the people what they want, exactly when they want it and wherever they want it. Radio has been replaced with MP3 players and Television programs are now watched on DVRs so that people can fast forward commercials and watch their shows when they want. News is relayed primarily through Google searches, RSS feeds, Twitter and Facebook to name a few. So with the new technology comes new opportunity for your business’s marketing. The companies that will be successful in their marketing attempts are those that market with the mediums that their consumers are using.

The great news for businesses is that changing our marketing strategies from the traditional media is easy, more effective and more economical. A business should never just rely on one source to market itself, but integrate many different outlets. Social media allows for companies to communicate with their current and future customers with little or no financial investment. Of course every business also needs to have a presence on the internet and a website would be the main source, but these days a lot of companies are using platforms such as Facebook or MySpace as their main presence on the web. Every situation is different, but a company website is still preferred by most and then is supplemented by driving traffic to it through the social media outlets. What all of these methods offer is recognition as well as interaction with customers that was previously unavailable using print media or television and radio.

To truly engage customers and offer instant information that is guaranteed to be read, look no further than SMS marketing. Since 86% of Americans have mobile phones and 95% of mobile phones are SMS capable, text messaging is one of, if not the most effective form of marketing that a business could use. Text messages have an open rate of around 97% and over 80% of texts are opened within 4 minutes of being received. Text message marketing is the way of the future. It is easy to use, very effective, measurable and has a very high R.O.I. Implementing a SMS marketing program is quick and affordable. Businesses will see almost instant results when they begin to utilize SMS marketing.

The limited length and design of the SMS text message is beneficial to both the advertiser and the consumer. A text is limited to 160 characters. Proper grammar is not expected and words are abbreviated in order to say as much as possible within the limits of the 160 characters. This ensures that a business will not “waste” the customer’s time because it can only be short. The business does not waste time by trying to find the right words and make everything look great. Just get to the point and that is it.

A text message is instant. Businesses know that when they send out a text message alert it will be read almost instantly by over 80% of the recipients. This technology allows for businesses to schedule the text message at the most opportunistic time. A restaurant sending a text alert about their lunch special at 8:00 pm would not accomplish too much, but sending the specials at 10:30 am when people are starting to get hungry and thinking about lunch will make for a very successful campaign. With text message marketing you can schedule texts to be sent at the perfect time even months in advance.

There are so many ways to utilize SMS text messages for your marketing. As long as you are mindful of your audience and deliver quality content, then you build better relationships with your current and future customers.

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