With the growing popularity of communicative services like social media, FaceTime, and now VR, it is perhaps surprising to see that the numbers tell a different story. As popular as the aforementioned may be, none seems to come close to SMS in the realm of marketing.

Featured below are some of the statistics that spell out that your customers want you to contact them via SMS. Not email, not ads on other mobile apps. And definitely not social media DMs!

Let’s take a deeper dive into some of the most intriguing data on mobile usage and SMS out there –

1. About 84% of the world’s population has a smartphone.

This might be no shocker to a lot of people. 83.96% of the total population of Earth owns a smartphone. That is 6.64 Billion users with active SMS services.

For businesses that have been hesitant to use text message marketing, never has been a better time to launch your SMS campaign. The number of people you can reach via this communication method is simply gigantic.

2. Text marketing is incredibly effective, with SMS open rates as high as 98%.

Texts intended for marketing are just not perceived as spam. Perhaps it has something to do with just how old SMS is as a service. Perhaps it is about how well the text is written.
Regardless, with an open rate of 98%, there is no excuse to not employ text messaging in your marketing campaign.

3. People check their phones up to 160 times per day.

This is one of those facts that reflects just how much the world has changed. According to this survey, 48% of people felt like smartphones are now a part of their lives that they just couldn’t make do without it in 2021.

4. 62% of marketers say that delivery speed is SMS marketing’s biggest benefit.

SMS marketing’s biggest benefit has been agreed upon by the majority of marketers to be its speed – followed by heightened customer engagement and cost-effectiveness. The same survey also revealed that 50% of respondents said that flash sales and time-sensitive promotions would encourage them to opt into a business’s text messages.

Most of the participants of this survey were also open to receiving text notifications about the following:

• Shipment tracking (75%)
• Order status/confirmation (65%)
• Scheduling reminders/alerts (46.3%)

5. No generation is an exception to SMS marketing.

For whatever reason, the newer generations are expected to be more in-touch with portals like SnapChat or Facebook. However, this report found that users preferred communicating with businesses via SMS, Baby Boomers, Gen X, Gen Y, and Gen Z alike.

6. 83% of millennials say they open texts within 90 seconds of receiving them.

Expanding upon the previous finding, millennials claim that they are more likely to open/respond to marketing texts.

• 83% of millennials would rather text your business than call a customer service helpline.
• They prefer not being contacted via social media channels like Twitter or Facebook.
• Texting is the most preferred channel for notifications.
• A fifth of respondents had never received a text from a business.

7. 59% of people don’t want to communicate through a separate app.

This brings us one step closer to uncovering the mystery of SMS marketing’s efficiency. 59% of people want their communications to be built into their phones and don’t prefer using a separate app for the same.

8. Only 10% of SMS marketing messages are marked as spam.

As opposed to the 49.7% of marketing emails being marked as spam, SMS is only viewed by a selected few to be undesirable.

9. Customers find SMS communication to be easier.

This is yet another step forward into understanding why there is no generational gap when it comes to the preference of SMS as a means of communication with businesses. With over 56% finding SMS to be faster and 74% of users feeling no difficulty with the mode, a text marketing campaign just cannot go wrong.

In Conclusion

These findings clarify one thing – mobile phones and SMS marketing are thriving right now. Text marketing is changing the way companies communicate securely with customers and should be on the campaign bucket list of every business.

The masses view texting as a trusted means of communication. Probably due to its lack of connection with the internet. SMS campaigns can prompt action because of their closeness to the user.

And due to this very reason, SMS marketing campaigns have been utilized by companies for years before Email marketing, or Instagram Ads were a thing. In this article, we will be going over why SMS is so effective at prompting action and how you, as a business owner, can leverage the power of SMS marketing.

Time & Cost Effective

SMS marketing is extremely beneficial for starting campaigns almost instantaneously. SMS campaigns are time efficient because there are only two things that need to be decided on before commencing it: the message and the senders’ list.

On the other hand, for things like offering customers information about deals and discounts, and responding to company information. It was found that 90% of most messages are read between 3 minutes of them being sent. This makes the click through rate of SMS much more effective than most channels.

The time efficiency of SMS campaigns comes from it being a two-step process. This also means that most SMS campaigns are highly cost effective too. SMS marketing can amount to significant savings in time and finances with a high click-through rate. This is what makes SMS such a high ROI channel.

Text Messages Are Direct

While channels like email have entire sections dedicated to spam messages, it is found that only 1% of receivers consider their text messages spam. SMS is especially more effective because it arrives directly in the recipient’s inbox. Moreover, these SMS notifications will often  remain as an alert on the receiver’s device until it is opened and/or responded to.

The reason SMS works has to do with it being a direct feature of cell phones. Users don’t need to login or open any apps as they would with other channels.

There is an overwhelming amount of content created each day. Users are, therefore, much more wary of where they invest their attention. However, SMS overrides this challenge by dropping right into a person’s phone.

SMS Can Be Used As Appointment Reminders

At the event of your company organizing a fundraiser, seminar, or just a simple exhibit, attendance is key. And there’s only one thing worse than low sign-up rates, people who sign-up but don’t show up.

While trying to theorize the reasons behind their absences goes nowhere, we can theorize possible solutions. And arguably, the most effective of them is SMS reminders.

SMS services, if used as reminders, can do wonders for this problem. A simple text reminding each employee about an oncoming appointment significantly improves attendances and can be the way out for many companies going through a rut.

Call-to-Action Text

Incorporating call-to-action (CTA) text can increase customer engagement by a great margin. When customers have a clear idea of what their next step should be to consume your product, they are much more likely to click through. Some of the best ways to include CTA in your SMS campaigns are as follows:

• Attention-grabber texts followed by “Click here” are very likely to get receivers signed up for your events.
• Asking customers to enter “Text-to-Win” contests can highly increase customers’ engagement. Even when huge events are not in your schedule, Text-to-Win campaigns can remind customers of your existence and continue to increase traffic and sales.
• Ending your targeted messages with “Buy now” can drive sales on products that your regular customers might be unaware of. A text promoting that product with a “Buy now” button makes it easier for routine customers to make purchases.

Conclusion

With millions of SMS getting sent every day, it isn’t even a huge challenge to incorporate SMS messages into your marketing strategy. Oftentimes businesses reap more benefits by complementing an email marketing strategy with SMS. Craft effective messages, analyze your buyer demographics, and invest in SMS-specific sales marketing to explore the true potential of your SMS campaigns.

SMS will reach the milestone of 30 years of continuous service in December 2022. For a modern electronic communications protocol, that is a ripe old age indeed! The humble text messaging protocol has defied numerous predictions about its impending demise for more than a decade now.

At least 2.85 billion mobile phone users across the globe rely on SMS for sending messages and receiving business notifications. Despite the challenges posed by internet-based instant messaging services like Whatsapp and Messenger, SMS is still going strong in 2021.

The main reason is its simplicity – as a universal standard, it works across all mobile devices and telephone networks, old and new. There is no need for extra software, data packs, or third-party apps/services. All you need is a mobile phone and a cellular network.

But with the rise of Rich Communication Services (RCS), is SMS finally on its way out? What does the future hold for SMS users, especially businesses that use it for everything from sales to customer support?

What is RCS and How is it Different From SMS?

The original Short Messaging Service protocol was championed by the Franco-German GSM Group in 1984. Similarly, RCS is a next-generation messaging protocol championed by not one, but many entities – Google, Samsung, and GSMA are the main proponents.

RCS stands for Rich Communication Services. It works like SMS but has modern features comparable to online messaging apps. These „rich” features include:

• Sharing video/photos
• Audio messages
• Add/remove group chats
• Map directions
• Enhanced chat suggestions

In fact, RCS is not a competitor of SMS – it is like a bigger, better, upgraded version of SMS fit for the new, digital world. Like SMS, you don’t have to download separate apps to use the RCS feature – it will be available by default on mobile phones.

However, RCS is different from SMS in one area –  required communications protocols. SMS was created many years before mobile internet – it uses a universal standard that works both on traditional signaling networks (TDM) or modern internet-based protocols.

As it is relatively new, RCS requires a data connection – it will work with either mobile data on 3G/4G/5G networks, or WiFi broadband internet. This also opens up a new world of possibilities. With SMS you are stuck on a mobile number – meanwhile, RCS can be accessed on a wide range of internet-enabled devices.

Why is SMS Still Around?

If RCS is patently superior to SMS in every way, why has it not replaced its predecessor yet? After all, it has been around since 2008. The answer, it quite complicated, just like the modern mobile and online markets.

One reason for the slow adoption of RCS is the current state of mobile and internet connectivity across the world. Many regions still don’t have 100% 4G coverage, even as 5G is already here. In areas with poor internet connectivity, SMS is still essential.

Another major issue is carrier support. Even in regions with adequate network coverage, all carriers do not support the RCS Universal Profile – the current standard pushed by Google and others. This is due to fragmentation in the early days of RCS – there were several competing standards, none of them were compatible with each other.

But this could change within the next decade as countries slowly catch up with modern cellular networks. Meanwhile, Google has already unveiled RCS messaging on its Android mobile platform. Plus, the consortium has the support of Samsung, one of the biggest smartphone brands in the world.

However, one name is conspicuous by its absence – Apple. The company controls around 23% of the global smartphone market. And it is holding back the progress of RCS. Apple does not have an urgent need for RCS – its iMessage app has most of the advanced features of RCS.

Apple has not yet indicated an interest in supporting RCS. If an iOS user sends a message to an Android phone, that message has to be converted SMS. Until Apple accepts the RCS standard, this impasse will continue.

Does The Future Belong to RCS?

With Google making deals with many network providers, especially in markets like North America, RCS is finally in a position to gain traction. It holds a lot of benefits for businesses as well. Customers these days demand personalized experiences and enhanced features which RCS can provide.

SMS/RCS marketing can finally compete with other forms of digital marketing in areas like content delivery, and seamless experiences across devices. But as long as the Apple-Google impasse continues, the transition will be further delayed.

And in the meantime, SMS still has some gas left in its tank. Half the world population still don’t have access to mobile internet – over 3 billion people (PDF link). And progress on this front is slowing down, due to the pandemic and economic recessions.

Despite all its flaws, it will continue to have a place on our mobile devices until networks across the globe upgrade to RCS-compatible LTE and 5G networks. Given the ongoing pandemic disruption, that could still take a decade. So, a safe prediction for the coming decade would be – the (immediate) future belongs to both SMS and RCS.

And last, but not least: In SMSEagle team we keep an eye on the RCS evolution. SMSEagle software will be ready for RCS support once it reaches global popularity among users.

Update on 2023.07.25

The passage of the Digital Market Act by the European Union means, among other things, that the largest communications service providers must ensure interoperability within them. That is, to allow other providers of such services to access a given network. In simple words, this means that Android phone users are to be able to communicate with iMessage users.

Google Messages (SMS, MMS, and RCS application from Google) will soon gain the support of the MLS protocol. MLS is the newest standard for encrypting data in communication services. It can be used as an interoperability means between Google Messages and Apple iMessage.