SMS marketing has surged in popularity due to its direct and personal reach, enabling businesses to connect with customers on their most-used devices: their smartphones. With open rates as high as 98%, compared to email’s 20%, SMS offers unparalleled visibility and immediacy, ensuring messages are seen almost instantly.
The ubiquity of mobile phones has made SMS marketing accessible to a wide demographic, bypassing the need for internet connectivity, unlike email or social media platforms. Moreover, the simplicity and brevity of SMS messages resonate well in today’s fast-paced world, where consumers prefer quick and concise information.
According to Vibes Mobile Consumer Insights Report 2024, 60% of consumers now expect to hear from brands via text messaging at least once a week. Perhaps more interestingly, 75% of consumers say text messages routinely drive them to purchase from brands.
The era of the mobile
As mobile technology continues to evolve and become more integrated into daily routines, consumers are spending more time on their mobile devices than ever before. Once reserved primarily to store credit cards, 52% of consumers now use mobile wallets for storing other such items like loyalty cards, offers and coupons, gift cards and event tickets.
As a result, mobile wallets are now a core driving force of foot traffic for brands. Vibe’s report noted 54% of consumers have made a purchase at a physical location with a mobile wallet offer, and nearly 60% have used their mobile wallet loyalty card when making an offline purchase.
As household income increases, our survey found that there is a higher likelihood of consumers using Mobile Wallet for more than just a place to store their credit cards. More than half of those surveyed by Vibe, said they are now more likely to engage with brands that offer a mobile wallet option for coupons/offers or loyalty cards.
Another key insight is the growing importance of mobile apps. With the proliferation of smartphones, mobile apps have become a crucial touchpoint for businesses to engage with their customers.
“Only Vibes bridges the engagement gap between high-reach, low-engagement email marketing and low-reach, high engagement mobile app marketing, with the elegant combination of SMS and Mobile Wallet,” the report said. “Plus, Vibes customers who have integrated both of these channels together have seen 19x more revenue per message vs. just sending SMS messages on their own.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, consumers using mobile wallets are far more likely to also engage with brands via SMS (40%). The pronounced growth of SMS and Mobile Wallet opens an opportunity for brands looking to drive more in-store and in-location traffic, given 98% open rates for SMS and the ability to directly attribute the ROI that Mobile Wallet drives for businesses.
Mobile first strategies
Vibe’s report underscores the importance of relevancy when driving long-term customer retention. Over 1 in 4 consumers as part of the study say the frequency of a text message does not matter, as long as the message is relevant to them.
A further 71% of consumers say too many messages or updates from brands is the number 1 reason for not wanting to receive text messages from brands.
If brands are intentional about what they communicate to their mobile customers, not only will most consumers not care how often they receive messages, but it will also drive higher brand revenue.
Mobile messaging clearly represents a critical 2024 opportunity for brands to further build and nurture their relationships with consumers. The challenge lies in sharing enough information about promotions and offers through the mobile channels that build affinity and loyalty — yet not so frequently that it overwhelms and irritates them into opting out.
