At its core, advertising serves three fundamental components: (1) Deliver the right message (2) to the right person (3) at the right time. With text messaging technology, you can add a fourth fundamental component – to the right device.

Gone are the days of three-media marketing (print, tv and radio). In just a matter of years, a four-media marketing strategy (print, tv, radio and web) is nearly obsolete. Social media marketing is all the rage and rightfully so with its culture-changing impact. But in the world of “opt-in” marketing, social media’s predecessor, text marketing, may be more valuable.

Opt-in Text Marketing: The Basics

A person who signs up or “opts-in” for a brand’s text message alert is most likely a current customer or an ideal prospect. A marketer can send a 160-character text message to an opted-in subscriber’s mobile phone. The subscriber finds so much value in what the brand offers, they willingly provide their cell phone number for the sake of direct marketing.

When Text Marketing Goes Right.

Right Message to the Right Person

Text messaging, like other opt-in marketing options like email blasts, operates with an extremely low cost per message. Even at the reduced cost, successful text messaging executions value quality over quantity. Delivering too many text messages annoys and upsets users. For some, text messages still cost money to receive. If a customer is paying to hear your message, make sure it is as relevant to the customer as possible.

Right Time on the Right Device

The issue of when to deliver a marketing message hasn’t changed since the advent of radio. But unlike the programming breaks of old, text message marketing allows advertisers to pre-schedule messages. Knowing when your subscribers are most likely to read and respond to messages increases the success of your text executions.

Text messages take an instant to receive. Voicemails take two instants to check and email, is well, slow. Because of a user’s haste in checking texts, your text marketing message can be sent with urgency. Instead of expiration dates, you can offer expiration times.

Moreover, the ability to forward text messages to friends provides ample opportunities to reach new people with the same credibility as word-of-mouth advertising.

Right On The Money

The cost of text marketing can fit nearly every budget due to the minimal labor costs, web-based mass text messaging programs and a manageable promotion lifespan. It can also integrate seamlessly into any existing campaign.

Absolute Marketing Group offers text marketing and trains clients on how to deliver the right message to the right person, at the right time on the right device. We encourage you to give us a call to find out more at 218.284.1111. Or better yet, send me a text 701.730.0622

MacDalton Berns is a Marketing Advisor at Absolute Marketing Group. He currently teaches at Concordia College and often speaks on advertising, marketing and social media topics. If you are interested in having MacDalton Berns as a presenter at your convention or company meeting, please contact him at 218.284.1111 or mac@absolutemg.com.