Not many businesses realize just how useful adding SMS marketing to email automation workflow can be for their marketing strategy. As more and more marketers adopt SMS into their omnichannel marketing strategy, they begin to realize its potential. You might be wondering why you need to include SMS into the mix. There are plenty of reasons behind it. This post takes a close look at how the adoption of text-based messaging can play an integral role in your omnichannel marketing strategy.
Set the Stage for SMS Excellence
To better understand why SMS is being widely used today, it is crucial to consider where the channel has come from and how it has grown over the years. Although SMS has been around since 1992, it was not until 1999 that text messages were exchanged between different networks. This led to a rise in popularity.
By the year 2000, users in the United States sent around 35 messages each month. In 2008, SMS messages surpassed phone calls in the United States for the first time. This was mainly due to the rise of third-party messengers like Facebook, Twitter, and the like. It also helped bring down the price of SMS, which made SMS adoption more rapid. Moreover, we live in a world where around 5 billion people use or at least have access to SMS worldwide.
Generational Impact
When we consider the use of SMS in omnichannel marketing strategy, it is vital to understand how text-based communication has dominated the younger demographics. As millennials are the largest living generation today in the United States, they spent around $1.4 trillion in 2020 alone. The generation prefers to go digital. Statistics reveal that about 65% of Gen Z and millennials interact digitally rather than face-to-face. As Gen Z represents $143 billion in buying power, businesses need to cater to them.
When we look at the internet and mobile usage, we realize just how important it is to go mobile. With 61% of them using their smartphones for at least 5 hours a day, it is essential to focus on mobile marketing to target younger shoppers. Thus, it should be clear that using SMS marketing is crucial since it where the customers are.
Companies that invest the most in SMS have a younger demographic. This makes the channel native for the customers. It means that customers would be more willing to communicating using omnichannel communication channels.
With Gen Z and millennials becoming economic powerhouses for consumer spending, there is no surprise why businesses are switching marketing channels to cater to them. Although email marketing has been successful, SMS marketing can help companies to reach new levels.
Conclusion:
The fact is that SMS is unique. It lacks the dependence on an internet connection, which means that it has a far wider reach. Besides, it is speedy and guarantees that the message would be quickly read. There is also an added level of proximity that you cannot overlook.
