In today's age of social media and advanced communication methods, businesses may find themselves overwhelmed by an increasing number of options to contact customers. Facebook posts, tweets and emails may seem like valuable ways to communicate messages to the public, but according to a series of studies, these all pale in comparison to text messaging, which is still the dominant application on mobile phones and the preferred method of communication.
Information released by the online publication Mobile Marketer states that 98 percent of all narrowcast text messages are opened. Narrowcast messages are sent to a specific person or group of recipients. Sending an SMS message to specific recipients may seem like it would increase the chances of it being opened, but studies show that the general public are just as likely to receive this form of communication.
Broadcast messages – content sent to either the general public or a relatively large subset of the public – are opened just as frequently if they are sent via SMS. According to the infographic, only 2 percent of broadcast SMS and MMS messages are not opened. This compares to 84 percent of Facebook posts and 71 percent of tweets that go unread, according to studies conducted by the respective social media companies, and 88 percent of emails that get ignored.
Mashable contributor Allegra Tepper wrote that despite popular belief, broadcasting via social media and email is not as effective as once thought.
"Meanwhile, 98 percent of text messages are opened, and therefore, companies that market through SMS/MMS have a far truer reach."
One reason why SMS messaging is so effective is the sheer number of users. According to a report from comScore, there are 234 million U.S. citizens with mobile phones. Meanwhile, there are only 161 million U.S. users on Facebook, Pinterest and Google Plus – three of the top social networks on the internet – combined.
Businesses need to take advantage of these staggering numbers. Swift SMS Gateway gives organizations the tools they need to formulate an effective and profitable SMS campaign.
