Column: Why SMS Marketing is crucial for your business
Editor”™s note:
This post marks the debut of two enterprising teenage brothers from Scarsdale, Michael and Marc Guberti, as guest contributors.
- Michael and Marc Guberti
In alternating columns, 19-year-old Michael, a sophomore at Fordham University, and 17-year-old Marc, a senior at Fordham Prep in the Bronx, will weigh in and offer money-making advice on business-focused digital topics that include e-commerce and online marketing, search engine optimization for bloggers and promotional strategies for social media.
The Gubertis, both authors of instructional e-books and motivational speakers, provide social media and online course creation services to business owners, solo entrepreneurs and corporations. The brothers last year founded and run Teenager Entrepreneur Boot Camp, a summer program on Fordham”™s main campus at which the brothers teach their teen peers “how to package their passions into profits.”
”” John Golden
Have you ever given a stellar presentation and not received business from it because you had no way of communicating with the audience post-event? Perhaps you collected their email address, but with the average person receiving more than 140 emails per day, it was somewhat difficult for your novel content to stand out in their inbox.
Now there is a more potent, simpler method to reach potential clients ”” SMS or Short Media Services Marketing.
Since 95 to 98 percent of text messages are read within minutes of receipt, according to a report in SMS Marketing magazine, your brand awareness will spike with mobile subscribers. The origin of that marketing development is rudimentary. When a person receives a text message, often it is from a friend or update regarding phone software enhancements. Spammers can flood inboxes with ease as compared with phone numbers. We have become conditioned to expect positive notifications via text and cumbersome, time-consuming tasks from the inbox.
The average text response time is 90 seconds; the average email response time is 90 minutes. A text message appears on the lock screen, often alone and able to demand a person”™s entire focus. The email application is locked inside the phone competing for attention among other applications.
People spend a large amount of time using their mobile devices, evidenced by the prominence of smartphone suppliers Apple, Samsung and others. Effective marketing is getting in front of the most people that are interested in your expertise, and phones are in front of everyone almost all the time.
The stark juxtaposition of mobile dominance, and the opportunity to enhance your enterprise with mobile marketing, is revealed in viewership comparisons. While 98 percent of SMS messages are read, only 20 percent of emails are opened.
Is a 78 percent visibility spike worth your investment in mobile marketing? Answer carefully.
Michael Guberti is a Fordham University student and social media and business blogger at Teenager Entrepreneur, the social media marketing and entrepreneurship training business he operates with his brother, Marc Guberti. He can be reached at michael@teenagerentrepreneur.com or at 914-722-6005.