[SMS MARKETING SERVICE]
Boost your marketing ROI with our SMS & text marketing service
Send personalized, automated SMS messages and double your conversion rates with Infobip as your SMS marketing provider.
What is SMS marketing, and how can you use it?
Short message service (SMS) marketing allows you to send promotional messages, time-sensitive information, reminders, feedback requests, and more, directly to your customers’ mobile phones via text messages of up to 160 characters.
Much like email marketing, customers must opt-in to receive SMS marketing messages from businesses. With exceptionally high open rates (SMS open rates are 98%, versus 22% for Email marketing), SMS is a cost-effective marketing channel with high ROI.
Send welcome offers to new customers
Reach out to customers with branded and personalized messaging delivered straight to their inbox.
Offer relevant discounts to boost sales
Enhance sales and engagement by offering discounts on relevant products through SMS. These messages capture customer interest and drive purchases effectively, making your promotions targeted and impactful.
Create urgency with limited-time offers and deals
Notifying customers of an upcoming sale deadline can drive quick decisions and increase conversions, ensuring they don’t miss out on the opportunity.
Promote new products, services, or events
Boost engagement by inviting customers to exclusive events via SMS, or ask them to be among the first to try out your new products and services.
Send personalized offers to each customer
Enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty with personalized offers sent through SMS. With a personalized offer, you can make customers feel valued and drive repeat visits, strengthening their connection with your brand.
Notify loyal customers of rewards and gifts
Send personalized updates to loyal customers about their rewards or gifts via SMS. A free gift can increase their engagement with your loyalty program and encourage continued membership.
An SMS marketing provider that goes the extra mile
With industry-leading expertise in all things SMS, Infobip ensures you get all the help you need.
Avoid fines and constraints
Stay SMS-compliant in all territories with our global compliance engine.
Get a local number in minutes
Get local business numbers and short codes for more than 50 countries in a matter of minutes.
Automate and personalize messages
Automate and personalize your SMS messages using our customer engagement solution or via a robust SMS API.
Engage in two-way conversations
Use two-way SMS to encourage engagement and collect feedback or insights from customers worldwide.
Easily integrate SMS with your existing tech stack
We want to keep your operations running smoothly. That’s why our platform is easy to work with.
Choose from a wide range of integrations to build and add on top of our SMS API, and easily configure them with your existing systems.
Quickly connect to our flexible SMS API
Start sending programmable SMS messages with our comprehensive API and build the experiences your customers are looking for with:
- a basic or fully featured API
- advanced functionalities
- clear API documentation
- support from dev
The main benefits of SMS marketing
Because the vast majority of people keep their mobile phones close to hand, SMS marketing allows you to reach your customers in real-time, wherever they are. Here are some of the key benefits:
Instant engagement
90% of text messages are opened within three minutes, which means SMS marketing is arguably the fastest, and most reliable way to reach your customers.
Cost-effective
SMS marketing campaigns cost less than many traditional forms of marketing and advertising. They also typically see higher engagement rates and higher ROI than many other marketing mediums.
Easy to measure
You can track every aspect of your SMS marketing activity, from read rate to conversion, which makes it easy to understand how your campaigns are performing.
Global reach
95.5% of the world’s population own a mobile phone, and most of these phones (if not all) can send and receive text messages. This means you have the potential to reach almost all of your customers, anywhere in the world.
No internet? No problem
SMS messages don’t rely on an internet connection. They are sent via cellular networks, which means your messages get delivered even if your customers don’t have internet access.
Versatile
There is a huge range of SMS use cases. You can use text messages to communicate onboarding information, promotions, delivery updates, tracking information, appointment confirmations, and more.
How our customers use our text marketing solutions
96% of marketers report SMS helped them drive revenue, generating $71 for every dollar spent. Explore how our customers used our SMS marketing services.
SMS marketing rules and best practices
SMS marketing campaigns are heavily regulated in many countries. To get specific details about your target market, feel free to reach out to our experts.
Make it easy for customers to opt-in
In most countries, customers need to explicitly give their consent to receive SMS marketing messages. As such, providing a range of ways for customers to opt-in is key.
Provide SMS marketing opt-in options at multiple touchpoints, for example, at checkout, when a customer is creating their account, in the preferences section of their profile settings, or as a pop-up during their second or third visit to your website or app. You can also make use of QR codes to encourage customers to opt to receive special deals and updates.
Provide the option for customers to opt-out
Every SMS message you send should include an opt-out. You may choose to do this by instructing customers to respond with “STOP” to instantly unsubscribe, or by including an unsubscribe link within your message.
Clearly identify your business and the purpose of the message
To avoid confusion, be sure to include the name of your business in every message, and ensure the purpose of your message is as clear as possible. If you fail to provide this context, customers are more likely to unsubscribe.
Include a call to action (CTA)
Make things as easy as possible for customers by including a relevant link, and a clear CTA – e.g. check out our flash sale, redeem an offer or coupon, answer a survey, book an appointment, etc.
Timing is everything
In India and France, it’s illegal to send SMS marketing messages—even if people have opted in—after a certain time in the evening. In addition to understanding the regulations in the territories you operate in, it’s also important to consider the timing of your messages in terms of when your customers are most likely to be responsive, and happy to hear from you.
For example, sending a text to your customers to invite them to complete a feedback survey at 2am is not likely to yield a good response.
Embrace the power of personalization
This isn’t just about referring to your customers by name, it’s about sending messages based on their interests, their location (if relevant), and previous buying behavior. Well-targeted, relevant messages will help you build and maintain relationships with your customers, and are more likely to result in conversions.
Align your marketing efforts across all channels
SMS marketing is powerful, but, like many other types of marketing, it’s more effective when used in combination with other channels.
For example, one of our food delivery service clients, dahmakan, were primarily using Email and push notifications to communicate with their customers about order confirmations, delivery updates, and promotions. By incorporating SMS into the mix, they were able to double conversion rates, and reduce costs by 30%.
Tap into analytics and reporting to maximize ROI
SMS marketing tools offer a wealth of insight into how your SMS campaigns are performing. For example, you can learn what times your customers interact with your messages most or what types of messages yield the highest click-through rates. These insights can be used to build out successful future SMS marketing campaigns, and maximize ROI.
Frequently asked questions about SMS marketing
In most countries, SMS marketing needs explicit customer opt-in, which means customers need to give their consent to receive SMS messages. In most cases, you also need to include a free option to unsubscribe from text messages.
Regulations vary from country to country, and state to state in the US, and there are also rules set by individual mobile carriers. In order to ensure you remain legally compliant, and protect your brand’s reputation, you’ll need to ensure you fully understand the regulations in the countries you operate in.
From a compliance perspective, businesses should:
- familiarize themselves with the relevant regulations in the territories they operate in
- ensure they’ve obtained explicit opt-in consent from customers
- maintain records of opt-ins, including timestamps and IP addresses, as evidence of consent in case of any disputes
- take appropriate measures to ensure the secure handling of customer data
When sending SMS marketing messages, businesses should:
- clearly identify themselves and the purpose of the message
- avoid sending misleading or deceptive content
- respect do-not-call lists and time restrictions for sending messages
- provide clear and easy opt-out options
SMS messages are up to 160 characters long, and consist only of text. Multimedia Message Service (MMS) is an evolution of SMS, these messages can contain both images and videos, in addition to text.
You can see a side-by-side comparison below:
SMS
- 160 character limit
- Send text only
- Inexpensive
- Any mobile phone can receive SMS
- Ideal for immediate communication (reminders, announcements, updates, two-factor authentication)
MMS
- Higher limit than SMS (dependent on provider)
- Send text, videos, images
- More expensive than SMS
- Not all mobile phones can receive MMS
- Ideal for creative messages (promotions, coupons, QR codes)
RCS Business Messaging (based on the RCS protocol) allows businesses greater flexibility than both SMS and MMS with the ability to send not just text, but a range of rich content in order to deliver more interactive, compelling user experiences. RCS also offers features like custom branding, suggested actions, and advanced analytics.
You can see a side-by-side comparison of SMS, MMS, and RCS below:
SMS | MMS | RCS |
---|---|---|
Any mobile phone can receive SMS | Not all mobile phones can receive MMS | Supported on Android and Apple devices only |
Send text only | Send text, videos, and images | Send branded messages which include text, images, videos, cards, carousels, files, URL previews, and suggested actions |
160 character limit | Higher limit than SMS (dependent on provider) | No character limit |
No internet connection required | Requires an internet connection | Requires an internet connection |
2023 saw a 358% increase in RCS messaging, and many brands have seen great results from their RCS campaigns.
For example, with RCS, Club Comex saw a ten-fold increase in click-through rate, and a 115% increase in revenue versus their previous SMS marketing activity.
Rather than leaping straight into creating a range of SMS marketing campaigns, it’s important to first consider your business’ goals and objectives.
For example, if you’re looking to drive additional sales via your website, SMS marketing may be a great complement to any existing Email marketing activity – you might elect to send out special offers or flash sale announcements via SMS, in addition to Email. Or, if you’re a service-based business like a beauty salon, you might be looking to reduce the number of missed appointments. In this instance, you might elect to begin sending reminders via SMS with the option for customers to either confirm or rebook their appointments.
Or, if you’re keen to explore conversational marketing, you might consider using SMS alongside other chat apps. According to our 2024 Messaging trends report SMS and WhatsApp are the most popular, with 24.8% of customers going for this channel combination.
There are a huge number of applications for SMS marketing, but it’s important to identify which types of SMS marketing campaigns are the best fit for your business.
Once you’ve done this, you’ll need to select an SMS marketing provider. To ensure your SMS campaigns are successful, you need a provider who can:
- Help you navigate market regulations and understand country-specific regulation requirements
- Provide insights on a global level
- Offer all of the tools you need to manage your campaign from setup and sending, to reporting
As a Tier 1 provider and leader in global omnichannel communications, our experts help brands around the world set up award-winning SMS campaigns that convert.