SMS Marketing Stat: 75 Percent of All Cell Phone Users Can Text

Statistics that indicate the steady rise in text message usage are everywhere. Woven together, those numbers support the premise that business owners can benefit from launching an SMS marketing campaign.

But by itself, perhaps no stat is as telling as this nugget served up by Microsoft Tag: 75 percent of the 4 billion cell phones in use are SMS-enabled devices.

Small-business owners would be wise to focus not on the 4 billion, but instead on the 75 percent. After all, you’re only concerned with the people in your community who own cell phones, not on the worldwide head count. Just understand that if you own a salon, restaurant or hardware store, virtually all of the customers who walk through your door are carrying a cell phone, and you have the ability to connect with three out of every four of them by text message.

An SMS campaign is an effective way for business owners to connect with customers.That reality opens up a trove of opportunities to business owners who are increasingly finding that traditional ads just aren’t delivering the way they once did. But before we go too far down the road of strategizing an SMS marketing campaign, let’s look more closely at Microsoft Tag’s findings.

Of the 4 billion cell phones in use:

  • 3.05 billion are SMS-enabled
  • 1.08 billion are of the smartphone variety, which are not only SMS-enabled but also rich media-equipped, and thus open to more advanced customer-retailer interaction.

To reach this engaged audience, business owners can develop an SMS marketing campaign that resonates with customers on a more personal level than do traditional advertising models. Business owners can use a simple text-based initiative to announce sales and upcoming events, or they can employ hyperlinked texts to direct customers to mobile coupons, a mobile website, or a mobile app.

That type of selective advertising – which invites consumers to choose the advertising messages they will receive – is what people today expect. And it’s what they respond to. Statistics show that mobile coupon redemption rates dwarf the response to traditional clip-and-save coupons, in large part because mobile coupons reach an audience of people who have asked to receive them.

As for the Microsoft Tag study, what about the people in the 25-percent minority?

Don’t worry, they’ll come around. And your business should be there when they do.

Visit InVenue Mobile for a free demo and see an SMS marketing campaign in action. And follow us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn for valuable mobile marketing tips.