Spartans were quite distinct from the other ancient Greeks. Their mindset was forthright, their speech was concise and unequivocal, their behavior was brave, and their martial art was unbeatable. All that together made Spartans extremely effective whatever mission they took on. No one had the guts to ignore Spartans at that time.
Who should look up to Spartans nowadays? Who is in continuous search for strengthening the effectiveness? The digital marketers are among others. Once only the sky is the limit in the marketing perfectness, the Spartan modus operandi can be applicable to one of the marketing channels. The features of which channel are worth calling Spartan? What generates the brief, direct, and impactful messages capable of grasping the customers’ attention in an irresistible manner? The professionals of the complex marketing platform SendPulse equate the SMS messages to Spartans for a number of reasons. And here is why.
Almost no one ignores SMS
Numerous studies confirm the astonishing 90-98% open rate of the SMS messages. The indirect evidence of it is the annual number of the text messages people send to each other – 7 trillion. Another reason why SMS almost always reach the audience is the applied means of communication. We all have telephones: kids and grannies, rich and poor, busy leaders and unemployed. Be it a fancy iPhone X or an old-style button Nokia, a short text message is always readable whatever screen displays it.
People take telephones more seriously than the other means of communication because the own private material object which is always in our pockets works as an ID in many cases. The personal identification via a telephone number which is widely practiced by many services makes our phones as trustworthy as our passports. Such a behavioral pattern makes people check everything related to their “phone identities”, and SMS takes the top position in the people’s trust due to the technological maturity going deep into the history of the mobile gadgets’ development.
SMS is the easiest message to open
In contrast to the email clients and various applications, SMS messages do not require any log-in procedure for being read. The simpler the better, many contemporary smartphones allow users to check SMS without having to tap even once since the “idle” screens display them. Besides, SMS messages are not obtrusive by the behaviour: they are waiting for opening without the redundant disturbance in the user’s inbox as an alert.
The efforts we need to respond to a text message is minimal due to the simplest interface of the SMS messengers. It means the time we spend on the whole procedure of processing a text message is extremely short – we receive and send SMS almost instantaneously. This time-saving feature is crucial for the contemporary people moving through their day-to-day routine in a rush.
SMS reflects the very essence of a campaign
Due to a certain size limit, a text message contains only the main idea the marketers want their customers to be informed about. It may seem like a disadvantage since no visuals or detailed explanations are involved in SMS. However, just because of such a straightforward style and the unequivocal behaviour, a brief text message becomes as impactful as a slogan, a motto, a tweet, or quotes of classics are. In many cases, the creation of an effective call to action in the form of an SMS message requires the true creativity and linguistic proficiency from the marketers.
They must pack the very essence of their campaign in a tweet-long message without getting down to the level of preteens where “to” is 2 and “for” is 4. On the other hand, the simplicity of the form along with the conciseness of the content allows marketers not to spend too much time, money, and efforts for designing, refining, and testing of the SMS messages.
SMS can add value to the other marketing channels
The short text messages can constitute a series of calls to action maintaining the interest of the customers throughout the entire marketing campaign. Since the complex marketing platforms such as SendPulse offer the holistic approach to the digital marketing, the various channels can be interlinked in order to achieve the powerful cumulative effect of a campaign. Thus, SMS can facilitate the campaign’s outreach when the central role is given to the social media, for example.
A text message can introduce a social media campaign as if the light infantry enters the battle before the heavy artillery is involved. Marketers can arrange a preparatory activity by sending various notifying SMS messages a month before the main campaign starts. The notification SMS campaign can include several messages sent one after another at certain intervals in order to warm up the public interest like an opening band plays before a superstar enters the stage.
SMS does not shy away from menial jobs
Many transactional notifications require a communication channel which is not associated with spam and a random advertisement since the information they contain belongs to the category “must read”. An invoice, an order status, a shopping cart reminder, a payment confirmation, and many other similar types of the customer-related information should be sent via the channel the people take seriously. This is not about promotion in many cases. It does not require any creativity.
This is just a mundane routine, the menial work the other marketing channels can perform in the less effective manner since they do not possess the Spartan characteristics of the SMS messages. Besides, SMS is easily adaptable to the vastest array of human interactions ever: B2C and B2B, public and private, commercial and social, industrial and household – literally all the market sectors and types of people’s activity are covered with the universal SMS messaging.
How to hire Spartans
A cohort of the SMS Spartans can start working for your marketing campaigns when a professional bulk SMS platform is engaged. Sending SMS messages through the Internet is what SendPulse offers marketers. It means that the global occupation can be arranged by every marketer who can use the SMS service of SendPulse covering more than 800 networks in over 200 countries.
Such a huge battlefield implies the advanced extent of automation, and SendPulse provides the SMS messages automation scheduled at predefined intervals for a particular time and date. Each SMS Spartan can be armoured with individual weapons to take on combat roles with maximum efficiency. It implies the personalization SendPulse provides for every SMS campaign and SMS message when personal information for each specific recipient can be indicated.
Conclusion
In order to be deadly effective like Spartans, a marketing channel should select the means of communication which is taken seriously by the customers. Such a channel should urge the recipients to open messages every time they come whatever marketing campaign is launched. Due to both the technical features of the telephone communication and the psychological preferences of the telephone owners just the SMS channel is worth calling Spartan thanks to its record open rate along with the straightforward modus operandi.
Every marketer can obtain the brutal force of the Spartan SMS channel when the professional bulk SMS platform such as SendPulse is engaged. The global outreach, advanced level of automation, and personalised flexibility constitute the advantages of the SendPulse SMS service allowing marketing campaigns to be irresistible like Spartans.
Written By: Mark Holland
I love tech and gaming, and am always looking for the 'next big thing'...