Combining Marketing Automation and SMS

Automated messaging solutions

Marketing automation is fast becoming standard in all businesses. The technology enables businesses to efficiently and effectively engage customers without sacrificing precious time. Ensuring they can consistently engage and delight their recipients while saving time and reinvesting resources back into critical tasks.

Over the years, the marketing technology landscape has changed drastically. Today, there are over 8000 marketing service providers; a huge 13.6% growth spurt from 2019. These companies offer diverse solutions, making it easy for marketers to access almost every service they need, including mobile marketing, social media marketing, web analytics and even CRM.

The increasing demand for reliable communication solutions throughout 2020 is apparent. Compared to 2019, Conversational Marketing and Chat had the highest growth rate out of all marketing solution sub-categories (a massive 70%!)

Related: "Understanding Bulk SMS for Business"

The explosive growth of marketing technology and the rate at which innovations continue to change the marketing landscape has made it impossible for a single service provider to deliver everything that every marketer needs. Most service providers focus on their specific niche and specialised offerings. Combining and using multiple marketing technologies is now the standard for many businesses, as consumer demands and expectations continue to increase.

Leveraging the power of marketing automation

As the entry barriers and price points get lower, marketing automation is becoming more prevalent in small and medium businesses. Marketers are also leveraging a variety of technologies to great advantage. With a kitted-out and scalable Martech-stack, digital marketers can cater to a broad customer base, across diverse communication channels.

Considering the benefits of marketing technology, it’s no wonder that most of today’s successful businesses use marketing automation systems extensively. According to the 2017 Salesforce state of marketing report, 67% of marketing leaders have adopted a marketing automation platform with an additional 21% already planning to use the technology.

Adopting the technology allows businesses to integrate and automate their communication channels seamlessly and as a result, enhance lead generation and lead nurturing.

Related: "The 2021 Guide to Bulk SMS Integrations"

Benefits of adding SMS to the automation mix

Email marketing remains one of the most effective tools in marketing. New email technologies now allow you to deliver targeted, relevant, and behaviour-based messages to your customers and subscribers.

However, as good as email communication is, SMS still surpasses it in terms of open and engagement rates. 98% of SMS are opened compared to only 22% of emails. It becomes even more impressive when you consider that 90% of text messages are opened and read within three minutes.

Combining SMS marketing and email campaigns with marketing automation can do wonders for your brand. It can help you improve your conversion rates and grow your business. As a result, today’s savvy marketers are combining the power of marketing automation, SMS, and email to deliver a full-funnel customer experience.

Marketing is all about integration. Alone, each marketing technology can only do so much. Combine with SMS, and you have the potential to transform your marketing campaigns. But with so many options available, picking ones that will easily integrate with other service providers is easier said than done.

Where integration doesn’t already exist, marketers can leverage the power of Email-to-SMS enabling them to convert standard emails into SMS messages. The service allows businesses to converge their existing systems with an online SMS platform seamlessly.

All you need to do is customise your email client, and the email-to-SMS API will allow you to convert emails into an SMS compatible format—pushing the message to the intended recipients’ handsets. The process is quite simple, and you can send emails from your existing email platforms such as Outlook, Gmail or AOL. As well as from external CRM systems, internal programs, and third-party software.

Marketers who send out SMS reminder notifications alongside their email campaigns typically see a lift in open and customer engagement rates. This, in turn, enhances a company’s brand image and increases conversions rates.

Why use automated SMS marketing

Incorporating mobile marketing campaigns into your marketing automation mix can help you revive inactive leads, boost your customer retention, and increase your ROI while further engaging your subscribers. Enhance your sales efforts and communication capabilities effortlessly with a robust SMS integration or plugin.

SMS automation can empower your business to send messages based on your clients’ behaviour; sending them the right message, at the right time, with the right content. Even if your company is time-poor or under-resourced, messaging automation enables you to send timely follows-ups, personalise marketing messages, and automate relevant and helpful responses.

By combining the power of marketing automation with SMS, you can create a seamless multi-channel customer experience. Engage hot leads and potential customers across a variety of touchpoints with dynamic SMS automation.

At SMSGlobal, we can help you automate your marketing processes and communications across online and offline channels. From workflow triggers and order status updates to automated welcome messages and more, we provide SMS solutions for a range of business requirements.

Unlock SMSGlobal’s messaging capabilities within your favourite platforms:

• HubSpot
• Zapier
• Marketo
• Salesforce
• And more!

Our SMS experts are on hand round the clock to provide strategic advice and help you implement marketing automation best practices within your business.

Get in contact with one of our friendly SMS experts here. They’re available 24/7 to help you start integrating SMS or answer any of your questions.