Around 15% of consumers respond to SMS text messaging marketing, with this figure rising to around 46% of recipients for the best-performing campaigns.
On average, about 4% of recipients actually buy the advertised product. However, this figure rose to 17% for the most successful campaigns.
Immediate Action Taken On Receiving An SMS Ad | ||
Percentage Of Survey Group | ||
Average | Best | |
Read then deleted | 76 | 88 |
Stored and read later | 23 | 40 |
Saved it | 21 | 37 |
Any reading | 94 | 100 |
Showed it to friend | 20 | 39 |
Forwarded | 6 | 10 |
Any viral | 23 | 41 |
Source: Enpocket, February 2003 |
Campaign Responses SMS Ad Recipients | ||
Percentage Of Survey Group | ||
Average | Best | |
Any response | 15 | 46 |
Reply to the message | 8 | 27 |
Visit website | 6 | 19 |
Watch television | 6 | 17 |
Buy advertised product | 4 | 17 |
Visit a shop | 4 | 15 |
Supply own email address | 3 | 9 |
Visit a WAP site | 2 | 5 |
Call a telephone number | 2 | 4 |
Source: Enpocket, February 2003 |
Users are around three times more likely to visit an advertised website than to make a return phone call, despite the fact that the ad is received on a telephone. Enpocket found that the unknown cost of dialling a call centre from a mobile, along with the preferred anonymity of websites were largely responsible for this response.
SMS outperforms Enpocket concludes that SMS advertising “consistently outperforms other response media channels, such as direct mail and email.” The evidence for this claim is presented in the chart below.
The report predicts that there will be an accelerating growth in the use SMS campaigns, as marketers become able to exploit these high response rates.
“With this third [Enpocket Insight] report, SMS advertising has firmly proved that it is also a more effective direct marketing channel than other media. The personal nature of the medium and high attention it commands, coupled with its unparalleled targeting and response capabilities, means marketers can deliver actionable campaigns of greater relevance and impact to their target audiences,” claims Enpocket CEO, Jonathon Linner.