When you need to market to a large audience, what’s your best tool? It’s the one that can reach just about anyone through a device they already carry with them.
Advantages of SMS
Communicating with a host of potential or existing customers at once is called bulk marketing — and the most effective channel to use for it is SMS text messaging, for several reasons.
It’s personalized. With a cloud communications platform like Plivo, you can use SMS APIs to send targeted, personalized text messages from your own applications directly to customers’ mobile devices. Once you’ve coded your application, you can generate marketing campaigns with a few mouse clicks.
It’s cost-effective: Each outgoing message costs ₹0.14 in India; businesses that have registered on a DLT platform are eligible for a lower domestic rate. Messages cost a fraction of a cent in North America and similarly low amounts in other countries; for Plivo’s rates in every country, check our pricing page. Low cost and the high open rate of 98% give SMS the highest ROI of any communications channel.
It’s measurable: If you’re not sure whether bulk SMS is effective, you can take advantage of another of its features — tracking. You can run analytics to see key metrics such as click-through rate, delivery rate, and unsubscribe rate.
With Plivo, you can monitor SMS marketing campaigns in real time through the messaging logs on the Plivo console. The logs show you how many messages you’re sending and what the status is — delivered, failed — and, if a message failed, what reason was for the failure. And you can filter the logs in a number of ways — by location, by from or to number, status — and drill down on any entry in the list of results.
SMS use cases
Bulk SMS marketing campaigns tend to be oriented toward promotional messages and customer engagement. Promotional messages cover things like
- Product launches
- Sales and discounts
- Special offers and promotions
- Event invitations
- Loyalty programs and rewards
Customer engagement messages are designed to maintain a positive ongoing relationship between you and your customers, with things like
- Timely updates
- Tips and helpful information
- Surveys and feedback requests
And while we’re focusing on SMS marketing, once you’ve set up a communications platform to send marketing messages, you can make use of it in other ways as well. For instance, you can use it to send transactional messages such as
- Order confirmations
- Shipping notifications
- Payment reminders and balance notifications
- Appointment reminders
- Service updates
If you’re a manufacturer, a service provider, or a governmental agency, you can send timely notifications about
- Product recalls
- Service outages
- Appointment cancellations
- Security breaches
- Traffic and weather alerts
And any organization can set up message distribution lists for their own staff and contractors and send things like
- Company announcements
- Policy updates
- Training and development opportunities
- Shift reminders
Special considerations for bulk SMS marketing in India
Following a set of best practices will help you get your message out wherever you are in the world, but if you’re trying to reach recipients in India with your SMS messages, you have a few extra factors to consider.
- Regulatory compliance: The Indian government has strict regulations in place to protect consumers from unsolicited marketing messages, such as the Telecom Commercial Communications Customer Preference Regulations (TCCCPR) and the National Do Not Call (NDNC) registry. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) requires all message senders to register on a DLT (distributed ledger technology) portal. Different regulations apply to transactional and promotional messaging. Ensure that your bulk marketing campaign adheres to all relevant requirements.
- Language diversity: India has numerous languages and dialects. Using recipients’ preferred languages enhances engagement and response rates. Tailor your messages to the linguistic preferences of your target audience.
- Cultural sensitivity: Indian consumers have diverse cultural backgrounds, and you have to be sensitive to them when designing bulk marketing campaigns. Make sure your content is respectful and relevant to the specific needs and preferences of your target audience.
Keeping these considerations in mind as you craft your marketing messages should help you create campaigns to send promotional messages, advertise products or services, increase brand awareness, and drive sales in the Indian market.
