Text Messaging Featured Article

Is text messaging the perfect marketing vehicle? At the moment, it might be.

First, the obvious opportunity: the average person looks at his or her phone about 150 times per day, according to meta research by Slicktext, which recently put together a case for text marketing.

Text messages are read on average within 5 seconds of their arrival as a result, and text messaging produces engagement rates 6 to 8 times higher than email marketing.

The clickthrough rate on text messaging links is higher than in email, too; with email, the average clickthrough rate is roughly 4.2 percent. But with text messaging, it is about 19 percent. This is partially because the average person receives 1,216 emails per month, according to Slicktext, compared with only 178 text messages over the same period.

This is not surprising. What is surprising is that consumers actually want marketers to leverage text messaging for their campaigns. Whereas some might think that text messaging could feel invasive, the average person actually is ready for text message marketing.

A full 70 percent of people in the U.S. want to receive offers on their mobile phone, according to Slicktext.

Roughly 57 percent of consumers surveyed on the topic said they would be interested in opting into a brand’s loyalty text message program, noted Slicktext. Further, 90 percent of those who have participated in such programs felt they gained from it.

This is evidenced by the low opt-out rate; opt-out rates for text message marketing campaigns are less than 5 percent.

Coupons distributed by text message also are more productive. Studies have shown that text message coupons are 10 times more likely to be redeemed than those shared by mail or newspaper.

Some of its usefulness currently comes from the lack of marketers who are fully exploiting the medium; consumers might start ignoring more text messaging marketing once those 178 monthly text messages start to reach the number of emails received in a month.

But it also is true that there is more immediacy with a text message, and this is an inherent strength to the medium if marketers can thoughtfully leverage that immediacy.

And even if the opportunity closes at some point thanks to overuse, text messaging still is a sparking opportunity right now for businesses that leverage it. Forget where things will be in 10 years—right now, there’s perhaps no better marketing vehicle than text message marketing.