Failed SMS

Why SMS Marketing (Will) Failed?

14^th October 2015, Singapore – Today, yes today in year 2015, when we are swarmed with hundreds of communications applications (Apps) which piggybacks on 3G/4G data network – is slowly or in fact, rapidly replacing the good old SMS. (Short Messaging Service).

Smartphone with cloud of application icons

Real Competition – The top messaging apps today are none other than Whatapps, WeChat, Line, Tango, Viber, Skype and even the latest to join the crop are the Messenger by Facebook. So where does SMS stands today?

Now ask yourself, how many times do you really SMS a contact these days? When You received a SMS, do you look at it immediately like how you would when you received a message from the above mentioned apps? Likely people that you know or connected would have contacted you via an apps rather than sending you a SMS isn’t it? You must agree with me that such messaging culture is the trend today.

Junk Messages – Now, what about advertisements that shows up unsolicited on your SMS inbox? With today’s smart phones, sender numbers can be blocked from sending unsolicited SMS easily sending thousands of junk SMS Advertisements to thin air – now wait, those are advertising dollars paid by advertisers who seemingly were given the impression that their advertising dollar was well spent.

No, I am not saying that this form of advertising is not effective, I never said that – because thousands of SMSes were really sent based on the advertiser’s order, my point here is, how many of these SMSes were read by the receiver? Do you, yes I mean you, did even read a SMS advertisement from top to bottom at least once? Ok, now you are getting the drift.

What people is really using these days – In my line of work, I managed to speak to a few big spenders who advertise on huge budgets and I asked them a few interesting questions and guess what was their replies? My first question was which messaging apps do you use the most, and all given me the same answer – Whatapps. And when I asked which messaging apps on their phones that they use the least and all replied SMS. Now this is sick isn’t it, these advertisers themselves do not believe in using SMS and they spend money on SMS marketing, the irony of trade.

Impressive mechanics but no one is reading – It is always impressive to listen to how SMS Marketing companies present their pitch. You were made to believe that you are able to send unsolicited SMSes to specific locations, to specific demographics at specific time & date etc. Well, technology being technology, it is possible to achieve what these companies had claimed – but my point rolls back to the top – will anyone even read?

The Same culprits – To add to the irritation, personally I am already irritated by the phone marketing people who had been calling me at the wrong time to sell me the wrong products which I am not interested in. If you live in Singapore, you are likely to have received cold calls at least once from Insurance Companies, Banks trying to sell you Insurance or Credit Card, Slimming Centres, Property Agents, MLM etc. After the DNC (Do Not Call) Registrar was set up following complaints from the public, many of these companies had switched to SMS marketing.

The irritation continues as now, you are likely to receive unsolicited SMS advertisements from Insurance Companies, Banks trying to sell you Insurance or Credit Card, Slimming Centres, Property Agents, MLM etc.

Marketers, before you buy up an advertising package for SMS Marketing, ask yourself these questions.
1) Do you even read unsolicited SMS Advertisements?
2) Did you delete the unsolicited SMS immediately?
3) Have you tried blocking these sender numbers?
4) Will you even buy anything, just anything from unsolicited SMS?
5) Will you bother with the “traditional-door-salesman-without-a-face” (unsolicited SMS)

OK, now sign on that Advertising Order for 3,000 SMSes to be sent to your desired audience.

And good luck.