What is Bulk SMS?
A simple explanation would be: Bulk SMS is a service that enables sending a large number of SMS messages to a broad audience – at once.
This is a super powerful service to use in your business to deliver SMS messages safely, quickly and directly to your customers worldwide. If you’re running competitions, marketing campaigns, notifications to employees, promotions or events, Bulk mass messaging is the best platform to use for sending out a high volume of messages in one go.
BULK SMS can be split into:
- Wholesale SMS – messages which are sent from reseller companies
- Retail SMS – messages which are generated and sent from end customers like Facebook, Google, etc.
SMS messages are bought and sent in bulk, so the term Bulk SMS was the best to use since it describes this service immediately. Since messages are bought in bulk, they are much cheaper than regular text messages used on an individual mobile phone for personal communication with other people. In the same time, Bulk SMS is cheaper and significantly more effective than e-mail and e-mail marketing.
Besides widely spread and commonly used term Bulk SMS, some use terms like business SMS messaging service or professional SMS which are both describing the core of this mobile service.
This type of SMS service is ideal for advertising and marketing agencies, retailers, B2B businesses, financial institutions, banks, travel companies, and agencies or any type of business/organization that wants to create a customer list to reach and inform them on a regular basis. This will help each of them in earning customers’ loyalty. In the same time, SMS Bulk messaging service provides its users’ capability to communicate rapidly with large numbers of people, so it can be used ‘externally’ (marketing campaigns, informing clients of deals and promotions, competitions, etc.) or ‘internally’ (within the company, to send notifications to employees).
The beauty of Bulk SMS lies, in fact, it’s so easy to use. You just need to select your provider (HORISEN for instance), create your account, upload your list of clients, provide text message you want to send and just click ‘Send.’ And that’s it. In just a matter of seconds, your clients will receive the update you sent to them. And you’ll get the online access to statistics and reports in real time that will help you overview results to make successful marketing decisions in the future.
Immediate benefits coming from sending SMS in bulk are:
- Competitive advantage
- Low operational costs
- Revenue generator
- Measurable ROI
- High efficiency
- Good value for money
One of the most important things to mention here is very low operational costs. The transmission of Bulk SMS messages is far more affordable than voice calls, for instance. Not to mention it is far more effective than email since average email open rates vary greatly by industry, but on average is around 20%. The secret of mass messaging success lies in a fact that automated high-volume text messaging allows sender instant transmission of one message to a large number of recipients, regardless of their location.
Communication done this way is far more affordable and cheaper, providing a higher return on investment. And it is far more convenient too. Just imagine the time, effort and amount of money needed to communicate with your customers using some of the more traditional manners of communication, like cold calling. A disastrous way of business-to-client communication and even worse marketing! Then just compare this with an automated action when you send the same marketing message to all these people in just a second — no waste of time, no waste of money, no waste of resources and at the end, great results since you’re not harassing people. Those receiving your SMS notifications or SMS newsletters are those who opted-in to receive them.
Bulk SMS is a great lead generator and a prospecting tool since it enables businesses to reach out to and stay in touch with people who showed interest in their services/products. But, even if people opted-in to receive notifications, the process is far from finished. One of the reasons why this type of communication is so successful lies in a fact that more than 90% of text messages get read within 3 minutes of delivery. No other communication channel can brag to have such a success rate!
Simply put, this type of mobile communication provides easy access to clients/consumers, because all statistics say that mobile phone is most commonly used device today. Some data say 91% of adults keep their smartphones within arm’s reach. Some other data even say that four out of five smartphone users check their phones within the first 15 minutes of waking up. 80% of those say it’s the first thing they do in the morning. Another interesting fact is brands using SMS successfully reach 95% of smartphone and non-smartphone users (source: GoMoNews.com).
Why is SMS so popular?
Because it’s so easy to use and it is supported on all mobile phones regardless of being smartphones or featured phones.
Everyone can send and receive text messages, this simple technology doesn’t require any specific knowledge or technical “literacy,” nor does it require an internet connection. This is the reason why bulk text messaging service is the ideal communication channel to reach out and connect to customers.
So, if we know all this, not using this incredible power is one of the worst “business sins.”
Learn more about HORISEN SMS Platform.
If you need an SMS Marketing Platform, learn more about HORISEN’s Business Messenger.
