3 Reasons SMS marketing will die this year

Have you had a funny feeling in your pocket lately? Have you noticed a distinct lack of marketing SMS or that you only get SMS from your bank or your mobile operator - no more unwanted SMS. Smart digital agencies and mobile marketing specialists are already moving their clients from this type of communications.

There are 3 very good reasons that this year is the year SMS marketing will die.

1. High Cost of SMS Marketing Campaigns

Sending an SMS campaign still has real costs - typically these costs would double if you want customers to able to reply to your ad message (for example - to get a free code, answer a quiz question or just to reply with STOP). So a campaign with a set of 1000 numbers may cost you up to £100 - and if only 5% respond then your campaign costs are £2 per response.

The same £100 budget could be used smartly on a Google Adwords Campaign and a trial budget of £1 a day would last about 3 months! You would serve out 1000’s of impressions a week and get more CTR or leads.

Targeting Mobile Search or Mobile SEO would also be an attractive option for would be marketers.

2.Limited Marketing Budgets for 2010

Many companies are cutting their budgets again for this year. Predictably, high cost campaigns with low response rates will be the first to go. SMS campaigns that focus on buying something, going somewhere or ones from unsolicited sources are all suffering. Even banks will stop sending balance alert SMS’s unless it can be adfunded.

3. Strong Smartphone sales means you need to use a mobile website or app

All smartphones will come with unlimited monthly internet plans and have access to some kind of app stores. The better smartphones will be more like pocket computers with big screens, HD video playback and more. Customers will be able to connect almost anywhere with your brand.

Strong Smartphone sales including Androids (from manufacturers like Google, HTC, Sony Ericsson, Motorola) will increase in popularity along with iPhone and maybe Windows 7 mobiles. Nokia will continue to have some dominance in mass market 3G devices.

Finally .. now is the time to build a mobile marketing plan that is integrated - think mobile search and SEO - check what your website looks like on your mobile phone. Then contact me.

Now have your say - will SMS Marketing die in 2010?

Meet the author

Damien Saunders
An experienced management consultant and business leader interested in digital transformation, product centred design and scaled agile. If I'm not writing about living with UCTD (an autoimmune disease), I'm probably listening to music, reading a book or learning more about wine.