SMS Messaging

• SMS Marketing sees businesses send promotional messages via SMS messages to a targeted list of recipients who have given permission to receive marketing content from an organisation. SMS is a popular channel for brands to add to their marketing mix because its popularity with consumer audiences is unparalleled compared to traditionally used comms channels such as emails.

• This type of marketing is typically used to increase brand presence, create a more accessible brand for audiences and improve engagement and conversions within communication strategies.

• Virtually all SMS messages are opened by recipients and many are opened within seconds of receipt! Just consider how many of your messages you open or read the initial notification of.

• LINK has seen thousands of customers successfully implement SMS messaging into their everyday communications. This experience allows us to boast about stats such as: 98% average open rates, 30% engagement rates, and 7% conversion rates, just within 1 campaign!

• With LINK's platforms, SMS campaign success can be measured using statistics such as open rates, click rates, conversion rates, and opt-out /out-in rates.

• Your own customer feedback and engagement can also provide valuable insight into the effectiveness of your SMS strategy. - which you might wish to obtain through running an SMS survey campaign!

• LINK always advises customers to obtain explicit content for receiving SMS messages. This is not something LINK holds responsibility for and it is therefore down to the sending organisation's data protection guidelines to enact an appropriate strategy. Often, T&Cs may already include statements about messaging as a form of communication and brands may not need to act.

• Your dedicated account manager will be able to guide you on some of our best practices when it comes to easily collecting this consent. Do not hesitate to get in touch or schedule a call to discuss, should you have any further questions.

There are endless benefits to SMS and it will often depend on your specific use cases, however, we've listed below our top 3 reasons brands love using SMS:

1. Loved by customers

   • Your audience is likely to already be very familiar with SMS messages.

   • Short-form content is growing in popularity. SMS is a great way to engage your audience with a brief message, whilst not overwhelming them with lots of details.

2. Engagement like never before

   • With content remaining so accessible, consumers are more inclined to open a message and explore its content

   • Staying up to date with digital advancements, keeps your brand in-check whilst also keeping up with your audiences demanding digital needs

   • Greater engagement leads to greater conversions, which keeps the business finances happy!

3. Accessible and timely

   • There's no need to spend hours writing and designing SMS messages (unless you want to!). If you have a time-sensitive message to send, SMS is a quick and proactive way to do this.

   • Short messages that land directly into your audience's inbox allows your brand to remain so much more accessible to them.

• Getting started with SMS is less cumbersome than you may think. LINK provides personalised and tailored support for all customers no matter their project's scope or size.

• To start a conversation with us today, schedule a call now with one of our team to talk things through, or get in touch to ask a question.

• Yes, SMS messages are capped at 160 characters per message. If your message exceeds this, multiple messages will be sent.

• However, LINK provides various solutions to this limitation!

• Should your organisation need to message customers with greater character counts or even text images, videos, and other forms of media, we suggest looking to one of our rich messaging channels. These include WhatsApp, Google's RCS, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, and much more.

• It's important for you to consider which messaging channel best suits your audience and business needs. Our team is experienced in this area and will be able to best advise after an initial discovery call or conversation. Get in touch now!

The channel you elect to use will vary depending on your use case and business positioning.

WhatsApp is a globally recognised application with billions of users and offers multimedia messages to be sent. However SMS messages are more widely available but come with the limitations of of only 160 characters.

Our team at LINK will be able to discuss your audience and use case to help you best establish the messaging channel that is right for your goals. It may be that a combination of the two is best fit for you.

Contact us for a free consultation.

SMS vs MMS

MMS stands for Multimedia Messaging Service. It allows users to send and receive multimedia content, such as images, videos, audio files, and text messages, between mobile devices. MMS is an evolution of the SMS (Short Message Service) technology, which only supports text-based messages.

MMS messages are typically transmitted over cellular networks and require data connectivity. The recipient's device must also support MMS to properly display the multimedia content.

LINK Mobility supports SMS messaging and Rich Messaging. This overcomes the limitations faced by MMS device accessibility and costs.

Although SMS messages are text-only, a rich SMS message can carry a hyperlink that allows a user to open a 'web experience'. This can be a dedicated landing page that contains media of any kind, or direct users directly to your own website.