Brands can use  Best Bulk SMS marketing to build genuine relationships with the people who interact with them. Once you understand the types of text message marketing available for brand communication, you can optimize the channel and target your most engaged segments.

Keep reading to learn:

• What is SMS marketing?
• What are the types of SMS messages you can send to your customers?
• Is SMS marketing effective?
• When to use SMS marketing for your brand
• SMS marketing refers to the act of businesses sending a text message to customers about campaigns, promotions, news, updates, and more.

The term “SMS,” stands for “short message service” and brands use this form of communication to interact with their customers on a more personal level.

Like email marketing, Best Bulk SMS Service is an owned channel. This means you have complete control over who receives an SMS marketing message, what content you share, and when you decide to send it.

With text marketing, you have ownership over the experience you create for your customers across this marketing channel from start to finish.

Besides SMS messages, you can also send your customers MMS (multimedia message service) messages. MMS are text messages sent that have pictures or GIFs (and other animated images) embedded within them.

What are the types of SMS marketing?

When you implement SMS messaging as part of your marketing strategy, there are two types of communications you might send to your audience: promotional and transactional text messages.

Promotional SMS marketing via text messages

Promotional SMS marketing is messages or texts sent to your audience to increase sales, promote a product, or build brand awareness.

You can use these kinds of messages to let your customers know about the launch of a new product, offer a special sale or promotion, share company announcements, promote branded events, and even provide tips on how to best use the products you’re selling.

Event-triggered promotional SMS messages are communications you can send to your customers based on the actions they take on your website.

If a shopper signs up to receive text messages from your brand or adds an item to their cart on your website, you could send them a welcome text or an abandoned cart text to encourage them to place an order.

Transactional SMS marketing via text messages

Transactional SMS marketing is messages or texts that contain information your customers need, like order confirmation details or shipping information. If a customer makes a purchase, texting them delivery updates could be a great way to keep them informed and build customer loyalty.

They’re pretty simple messages, and unlike emails, there’s not a lot of creative liberty you can take with transactional texts in terms of content or design.

One thing to note: If your customer or website visitor signs up to receive transactional text messages, you can’t market to them through this channel unless they explicitly give you their consent to do so.

Is SMS marketing effective and beneficial?

All data trends for SMS marketing messages suggest it is one of the most effective channels for targeting consumers:

1. High text open rates and increased customer engagement

SMS elicits exceptional engagement numbers—think 98 percent open rates.

While this number may seem exciting, remember that a lot of consumers may only open a text message to get rid of the notification on their phones. That’s why it’s important to place more value on engagement metrics like clicks and conversions.

The good news? Depending on the content you share with your audience, text messages can outperform email on both click rates and conversion rates. For example, GhostBed sees 32 percent click rates with their Best Bulk SMS Service messages.

Text messages are often conversational (or at least, you can automate them to be), which means you can encourage your subscribers to respond to your texts.

2 . Text message marketing allows brands to reach customers instantly

People often read texts quickly once they receive them. In fact, they open 90 percent1 of them within three minutes.

If you have a special offer you want your subscribers to take action on immediately, notifying them via email means they may miss your message and not act in time to drive the results you want to see.

Instead, if you send them this timely message via text, they are more likely to see it sooner and take the action you’d like them to take.

3. SMS marketing creates more personal customer relationships

Texting is how people communicate with their friends and loved ones, which means their phones are often only an arm’s length away.

You can use SMS as a more exclusive channel, similar to a VIP program, to communicate with your highly engaged segment of customers since texting is so personal.