This is the free version of Trends PRO #0046 — SMS Marketing
🔍 Problem
Traditional marketing channels are crowded.
💡 Solution
SMS marketing helps you reach customers in an intimate, immediate channel.
🏁 Players
Personal Brands
Corporate Brands
Tools
🔮 Predictions
- SMS-only commerce will thrive. See WineText.com. Million-dollar, single-channel companies are built on email. Why not text?
- Paid SMS will gain traction. Subtext is Substack for text messages. Used by Minda Zetlin, Doug Lemerises and Jason Aten.
- Text courses, like email courses, will be used as growth tools. Arist helps you set yours up.
☁️ Opportunities
- Use SMS Marketing for:
- Cart Recovery (Gold Cultures)
- Promotions (Dunkin Donuts)
- Reorders (LensRedirect.com)
- Mindshare (Screenshot Essays)
- Flash Sales (HYPE)
- Pop Up Shops (Amazon Treasure Truck)
- Personal Recommendations (Good Counsel)
- Micro-Challenges (Minda Zetlin)
- Customer Support (Dell)
- Surveys (Salesforce)
- Payment Collection (Cardiovascular Consultants)
- Use bonuses to boost signups. Good Counsel offers 30% off when you sign up to their SMS list.
- Turn your leased audience into an owned audience. Jack Butcher nudges Twitter followers to subscribe for text messages.
- Monetize your SMS audience directly. Minda Zetlin charges $5/month for micro-challenges.
🔑 Key Lessons
- SMS is an intimate, immediate channel. Reserved for high-affinity brands or urgent messages.
- SMS and email are owned channels. Unlike Twitter, Instagram and Facebook.
- Competition breeds innovation. The Red Queen Effect applies to marketing.
😠 Haters
“SMS won’t always be this effective.”
So start now. And don’t overreact when the arbitrage fades. Physical mail still works.
“Why not just use push notifications?”
This comes with platform risk, it’s not ubiquitous (cell phones ≠ smartphones) and all brands can’t justify building an app.
“Your entire audience won’t move from Instagram to SMS.”
They don’t need to. Your true fans are enough.
“SMS Marketing isn’t new.”
Trends.vc isn’t about what’s new. It’s about what matters. Sure. Fitness instructors, real estate agents and cosmetologists have used SMS for business for as long as it’s existed.
“SMS and email also have platform risk.”
It’s a spectrum. Carriers live between you and SMS subscribers. Email clients live between you and email subscribers. Perfect is a myth.
🔗 Links
- Who should I talk to about SMS marketing? • The tweet behind this report.
- Creating Stronger Bonds With Fans Using SMS Marketing • See how BIG K.R.I.T. used SMS marketing for his album release.
- The Complete Guide to SMS Compliance • An 8-chapter guide on laws and regulations surrounding SMS marketing.
🙏 Thanks
Thanks to Stewart Townsend (Channel as a Service), Mike Donoghue (Subtext), Will Schreiber (Bottle), Dennis Hegstad (LiveRecover), Soheil Rashidi (PostSheet) and Harvey Hodd (Blueprint). We had a great time jamming on this report.
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What you’ll get:
- 30 Personal Brands using SMS Marketing (500% More)
- 27 Corporate Brands using SMS Marketing (440% More)
- 24 SMS Marketing Tools (300% More)
- 6 Predictions (100% More)
- 10 Opportunities (150% More)
- 6 Key Lessons (100% More)
- 10 Summarized Links (233% More)
With Trends Pro you’ll learn:
- (📈 Pro) Which platform makes it easier to build an SMS list?
- (📈 Pro) Where are Micro-SaaS opportunities in SMS marketing?
- (📈 Pro) Who’s leading the pack in conversational UX?
- (📈 Pro) Lessons from 200+ companies using SMS marketing?
- (📈 Pro) Who’s building an SMS list with virtual events?
- (📈 Pro) How does SMS marketing compare to email marketing?
- (📈 Pro) How to get SMS swipe files for 100+ brands?
- and a lot more…
