No longer a practice reserved for personal messaging, texting is having a moment - and this time, it means business.

The first ever text was sent in December 1992. Ownership of mobile phones was, way back when, a modest affair at best. (Full disclosure: that first text was actually sent from a computer to a phone which rather mars the fantasy of phone-to-phone connection and texting as we know it, but still); there were around 23 million cellular subscribers on the planet at the time. Fast-forward 24 years and 4.61 billion people own a mobile phone with reports suggesting texts - not any smart apps or online messenger services - are sent in their trillions every year (eight to be exact.) A lot can be taken away from this exponential growth, not least how for better or worse our phones have become (if medically unofficially) our fifth limb, but more importantly: where there are big numbers, big business is never far behind.  

However, in spite of this obvious marketing opportunity, SMS messaging remains a much neglected tool in terms of business communications. As a channel for informal social interaction, text messaging was perhaps never conceived as a comms tool for businesses. But then neither was Social Media. And then came the age of the latter and a new job market sprung up to employ the digital generation to serve the industry of ‘being more connected’. No matter how traditional their principles, brands had to sit up (and buck up any reservations) to claim this mass consumer hangout (Twitter and the like) as their territory too - and they did. But even that’s been milked to death and with some consumers staying offline and spam filters acting as a virtual firewall for all those email campaigns you spent countless hours sweating over, a new method of interaction is needed to cross your audience’s remit. Or is it? Perhaps that ‘new method’ could be an old faithful. The humble text message: a dutiful servant to large and small corporate machines alike, extending the narrative of your brand into everyone’s pocket. 

SMS is not just for reality television voting and national courier tracking details. As more and more small to medium enterprises have picked it up to engage on another level with their customers, we uncover the reasons why.

As a B2C tool

Proven success open rate

It’s rewarding when any outbound marketing effort pays dividends and this starts with a good opening rate. The good news is, text messaging is very much ahead of the rest in these stakes with open rates currently standing at an unparalleled 99%. The better news is, you don’t have to be a dyed-in-the-wool digital marketer to harness the power of SMS. Professional text messaging services will even write these blasts for you to make the most of the opportunity.

Cost-effectiveness

Any accounts department will tell you that sending text blasts is far more cost-effective than through other mediums such as email campaigns or direct marketing. Case in point: for less than £50 you can reach 1000 people. That’s 990 people that read your message and 990 potential customers to trade with.   

High ROI

In the unlikelihood that just one person out of that 1000 takes you up on an offer, you’ve made your money back and likely a profit too, which is why it’s proving so popular with independent firms such as hairdressers and florists who can trace activity and monitor campaigns so they know exactly who responded – and what worked to better inform the next one.

Personalisation

There’s no doubt about it: people buy into personalisation. Using SMS not only shows that your business values a personal interaction with its customers, but it comes with a purpose, too. Offering a troubleshoot service rather than giving them an 0345 number to a far flung destination and 17 minutes of Mozart in a call queue shows that you are thinking of their convenience; and that, in an impatient world, is priceless. By sending a text, your audience will have given permission for this kind of interaction too, so you’re being trusted within a realm usually reserved for friends and relatives. This exchange can be used to your best advantage by delivering bespoke texts with links and even attachments that make your service stand out from your competitors. What’s more, operations previously spread out across several platforms can be streamlined into exclusively SMS communications, from sales and offers to password confirmations and even hotel check-ins. 

High Reach

With the proliferation of mobile phones in our society and in business, you’d be foolish not to capitalise on these vitals with a text campaign. SMS is now a bona fide business communication and it needn’t be used only to connect with customers, but amongst colleagues, too.

As an in-house comms tool

The gift that keeps on giving

The hassle (and maybe even time-wasting) of assembling all of the necessary stakeholders into a board room for a company announcement needn’t break up the working day anymore. In-house text blasts are more effective than email round-robins and can cover anything from alerts and updates to recruitment opportunities. After all, whether it’s B2B or B2C, every form of communication is on a person-to-person basis. So you can rest assured that all of your staffers will read a text the same way a customer would, if to clear it from their screen. The same can’t always be said of a bustling email inbox where a more cavalier attitude of ‘I’ll catch up with those later’, is taken. 

It’s fair to say that text messaging is the language of today’s consumer and the sweetheart of the communications cabinet. Everyone uses a mobile phone and predominantly to send and receive texts, so don’t limit your business’ growth by shying away from this universal form of connection. As far as the challenge of alighting upon a new comms channel is concerned - and the possibility of good old text messaging being that business solution - it’s actually a case, of “black is the new black”.