Experts Weigh in on SMS Marketing for Small Businesses

Jairene Cruz-Eusebio on Dec 11, 2021 5:38:27 AM

Ever wondered if SMS marketing was the right choice? Or if SMS marketing would give you what you want? Questions like this may cause you to ask yourself, “What do experts think about SMS marketing?”

While SMS marketing does have its ups, it, of course, also has its downs — even though it’s proven to be one of the best ways to promote your business.

If you’re having doubts about SMS marketing and are in search of what experts think about it, then you’re in the right place. In this article, you’ll find different opinions from many marketing experts on SMS marketing.

Are you ready? Let’s begin!

What Experts Think About SMS Marketing

There are experts in all fields of life, and there are loads of them when it comes to marketing. Although what most of these experts think are quite distinct, they all have one thing in common: SMS marketing is on the rise and fast, although it’s not all good.

Before we discuss what each marketer thinks, we shall first talk about who each marketer is to help establish their credibility (just in case you have no idea who they are!)

So, without further ado, here are six marketing experts and what they think about SMS marketing.

Steve Weiss — SMS is the Next Best Thing, but Be Careful About Your Approach

Steve Weiss is the founder and CEO of the successful company, MuteSix, which is regarded as North America’s largest D2C (that’s direct to consumer) agency. That’s just the surface. MuteSix is also responsible for scaling some of the fastest-growing global e-commerce brands, earning Steve Weiss a seat among the top marketing experts.

Additionally, Weiss built his business from scratch in 2013 and even achieved a record-breaking title by Dentsu. Probably the best quality about Steve Weiss that makes him an expert marketer is his skills in building and executing teams for customer acquisition initiatives and high-level-growth hacking.

Now, what does this expert have to say about SMS marketing? Well, according to Steve Weiss, the pandemic kept a lot of friends and family apart. Still, people were able to maintain relationships through calls (voice and video), social media, and, more often, texts.

With the sudden rise in smartphone usage, people don’t seem to be putting their phones down any time soon. Consumers are storming online stores and making more mobile purchases than ever before.

Using SMS marketing would allow your brand to contact customers where they spend a lot of time. If you want a fast and logical means of interaction, SMS is the way to go. In Steve Weiss’ own words,

“Consumers engage with SMS faster than any other marketing channel.”

He also asserted that it only takes about ninety seconds for users to respond to text messages. That’s quick compared to the ninety minutes it takes for users to answer an email on average. SMS marketing has also proven to be quite efficient in preventing cart abandonment, new service and product promotions, seasonal sales, and even customer service inquiries. It’s also an effective way to recover lost revenue.

Most consumers prefer convenience, and thus, they might not like being bothered by complex steps at the checkout of any store. After all, a less seamless checkout process is one of the major reasons for cart abandonment.

Steve Weiss predicts that SMS marketing would eventually become an entire distribution channel that allows users to finish their purchase journey quickly and even store card details through SMS.

Finally, he advises marketers to view SMS marketing just like any other marketing strategy and be careful about their approach. Thus, be sure to personalize your texts based on the behavior and data of your customers.

Niel Patel — Avoid Marketing Noise via SMS, but Make Sure the Content and Link is Mobile Optimized

Niel Patel is a name you’ve surely have heard of if you’re a marketer, digital or not. He is famous in the business world for his entrepreneurial, analytic, and investing skills. He is also best known as a co-founder of successful names like Hello Bar, Crazy Egg, and KISSmetrics.

Niel is not only a blogger and an angel investor, but he’s also one of the top ten online marketers in the world. He was even recognized as one of the top hundred entrepreneurs under the age of thirty by former US president, Barack Obama, making him one the most qualified digital marketing experts in the world. He is a generous marketer that shares his knowledge in-depth on his self-titled blog.

Niel’s view on SMS marketing is on the positive side. He says the average person checks their phones up to one hundred and sixty times daily, making SMS marketing one of the best ways to contact customers.

People are always with their phones and are ready to use them to stay up-to-date in the social world and check for information. Moreover, there is a vast difference between the open rates for SMS and emails, a whopping ninety-eight percent versus twenty percent!

However, it’s important to note that mobile advertising will only work if your messages successfully reach the consumer’s inbox and are mobile-optimized. According to him, SMS marketing is the only method to avoid noise and achieve only positive ROI.

Though the idea of SMS marketing might seem trivial to most marketers because email marketing seems less regulated than SMS marketing, Niel firmly states that such ideas are simply myths.

Rather than use mobile tactics that could cost you clients, revenue, and conversions, it would be best if you took advantage of SMS marketing.

Niel gives a lot of details on the advantages of SMS marketing, stating,

“Do you think Instagram has good engagement numbers? Wait until you see what text messages get.“

In his opinion, SMS has an unrivaled engagement rate when compared to emails that stay unread for long periods or unanswered phone calls. Plus, there is a high possibility for consumers to read texts immediately when they receive them.

Other advantages he states include the ability to get quick and interactive feedback from your consumers, easily track and manage all your SMS campaigns, and even take advantage of immediate delivery.

Finally, Niel Patel advises that SMS and Facebook Ads can perform excellently alone, but you’d get entirely different results when you use both.

Gary Vaynerchuk — SMS is the Counterpoint of Social Media

Gary Vaynerchuck is a serial entrepreneur with a large presence in the social media world. The famed internet marketing expert is the current chairman of VaynerX and the CEO of VaynerMedia — there’s no denying the success of his brand and public company.

Vaynerchuk is considered one of the most forward thinkers in today’s business. He’s well-known for his ability to pick up early patterns and trends and teach other marketers about how these changes affect consumer behavior and different markets. It doesn’t matter if it is e-sports, digital communications, or emerging artists; Gary is capable of placing importance on brand relevance.

Gary Vaynerchuk is a marketing expert that takes SMS marketing to another level. He started by giving out his phone number, which made his plans clear: Gary had begun his SMS marketing campaign.

He even calls it the counterpoint of social media.

Vaynerchuk has been pushing the importance of SMS marketing and has even created his SMS marketing channel. While the marketing expert is well-known for his skill set, which includes motivational talks, vlogs, and books, he uses his SMS marketing to distribute his content and carry out one-on-one engagements with his fans.

There are several takeaways from Gary Vaynerchuck’s text message marketing. The first of the bunch says that SMS marketing focuses on subscriber growth; after all, building your list of phone numbers is one of the secrets behind any successful marketing strategy.

Vaynerchuk strongly believes there’s a clear difference between SMS marketing and spam. Thus, you should always segment your list of numbers to avoid losing subscribers. With a more segmented list, you can send content that’s more relevant, helpful, and customized to your subscribers. He even allows his subscribers to choose what topics they want to get SMS on by texting a keyword.

To Gary, SMS marketing should be clear and straight to the point. For this reason, he takes text message laws and regulations seriously, and so should you. It’s essential always to make clear the conditions of the text and how to opt-out in your confirmation message.

Gary strongly believes that texts in SMS marketing shouldn’t feel like a marketing and lead-generating tool to subscribers; instead, they should feel more personal. He even takes it a step further by sending out gifts randomly to surprise his subscribers.

The major takeaway from Gary Vaynerchuk’s SMS marketing journey is that he talks about why SMS marketing is the leading marketing strategy and practices it, showing us why it’s the best.

Jeff Bulas — SMS Marketing is for Building a Relationship with Customers

Jeff Bulas is not our typical marketing expert. From being unemployed, he worked his way up to become one of the world’s most recognized marketing experts. Now, Jeff Bulas is a well-versed marketing blogger, consultant, digital strategist, digital entrepreneur, and a well-renowned author.

Jeff Bulas’ blog is so successful that it receives more than five million visitors a year, and he has up to three awards to show for his prowess in the business world. These awards include #1 DIgital marketing influencer in 2013, #8 on “The World’s Top 40 Social Marketing Talent” in 2014, and one of Top 100 business, leadership, and technology Twitter accounts you must follow by Huffington Post.

Though Jeff Bulas’ opinion is mostly on mobile marketing, he mentions a few things about SMS marketing. According to him, the modern world is now more dependent on mobile phones than ever; thus, it’s only fitting that marketers make the most out of it.

Almost everyone possesses a mobile phone in today’s world. It’s now so universal that all you need is a number to connect to anyone, irrespective of where they may be in the world.

Sometimes, all a brand needs to grab consumers’ attention is a simple text message. Plus, because of how diverse the mobile consumer group is, it’s easier for businesses to interact with the right audience and even at the right time.

According to him, SMS marketing is a simple way to contact a large audience in little time. Even though text messages are one of the earliest forms of communication in the digital world, all you need is a personal message to create an emotional connection between your brand/business and your users.

With SMS, you can quickly let your audience know about your latest offers, customer rewards, and several other deals and promotions. With it, it becomes easier for you to keep interacting with your loyal customers and allow them to make the best of the offers you have.

Finally, Jeff Bulas comments that since mobile phones have become so important these days, all you need to drive sales is to reach the right inbox. However, remember that SMS marketing is not just about sending texts; it’s also about building a relationship with your consumers.

Jayson DeMers — SMS has a Huge Potential but Leveraging It is Not Easy

Jayson DeMers is a marketing genius and the founder and CEO of EmailAnalytics. However, that’s not the only thing he has created. Jayson DeMers is also the founder and CEO of the photo-based app, Kwippy.

Additionally, this marketing guru is also a top contributor to a good number of publications, including Forbes, Success.com, Inc.com, and many others.

DeMers has a wide range of skills that he specializes in as a marketer, earning him a place among the long list of marketing experts. His skills include online marketing, email marketing, SEO, content marketing, entrepreneurship, lead generation, and many more.

Similar to Jeff Bulas, Jayson DeMers also focuses on mobile marketing as a whole, but he does make sure to drive home the importance of SMS marketing.

DeMers says:

“There is huge potential when it comes to SMS marketing.”

He also makes mention of stats obtained from Venture Beat that SMS has a huge 98% open rate which is way better than the 20% for regular emails.

Even the click-through rate of SMS marketing is significantly better than that of email marketing. However, DeMers notes that while there’s a huge opportunity in SMS marketing, most marketers fail to use it, not because they don’t want to, but because they can’t.

He further says that it might not be easy to get people to drop their phone numbers. So, dropping a valuable incentive, like a discount, could get you the numbers you need.

Furthermore, DeMers believes that letting your consumers know about product launches or other sales promotions, sending reminders about appointments (if any), and sending customer surveys, are some of the best ways to leverage SMS marketing effectively.

SMS Marketing offers you a way to reach your targets and consumers anytime and anywhere with loads of click-through and open rates. Thus, your efforts are more likely to be paid off with positive and direct results in SMS marketing.

Michael Brenner — SMS is an Incredibly Versatile Tool

Last but not least, Michael Brenner is a marketing guru known across the globe. In addition to being a marketing expert, he’s also a keynote speaker and an author (his work includes The Content Formula). Plus, he’s the CEO of the Marketing Insider Group.

Brenner has also shown excellent leadership qualities since he has performed excellently for global brands like Nielsen and SAP and even for potential startups. Now, Michael has become an icon in the business world. He shares his passion and ideas on marketing and leadership strategies that positively impact business and drive solid customer value.

“Your business has a powerful marketing tool at its disposal. And, there’s a good chance you’re not using it. Or, at least not using it as well as you should,” says Michael Brenner on text message marketing.

Thus, it’s safe to say that Michael Brenner strongly believes that SMS marketing is quite helpful to all businesses and marketers. Some of the benefits include being a budget-friendly method and higher conversion rates.

All in all, Michael Brenner believes that SMS marketing is an incredibly versatile tool that allows marketers to perform all kinds of feats. Some of which include; sending payment reminders, requests, personalized reminders, geo-targeted and time-sensitive promotions, and even collecting feedback from customers and targets. SMS marketing has vast potential. Thus, the only limit is your creativity.

Final Words

With all these gotten from different marketing experts, it should become clear that SMS marketing is one of the best tools for promoting your business.

Moreover, the benefits far outweigh the negative aspects of SMS marketing. Thus, making it one of the most powerful marketing tools.

Although SMS marketing is not an old marketing channel, trying it now is worth a shot—instead of waiting for it to get older. Learn from expert marketers like Gary Vaynerchuk, who adopted SMS marketing early; and have witnessed incredible results.

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