The advantages of SMS marketing over email or direct mail is crystal clear -

1. Today no one goes anywhere without their mobile phones, which means that you have ready 24/7 access to your customers. The mobile phone is a very personal device; through SMS you can develop a one-to-one relationship with each of your customers. Given the deluge of email spam, marketing messages sent to a mobile phone are much more likely to be read than e-mail sent to a PC. Commercial messages sent via email are now easily removed by spam filters or routed to a spam folder without the recipient even glancing at the contents.

2. SMS Marketing campaigns can be highly targeted and opt-in. SMS allows your customers to easily let you know what they wnat to hear from you with just a few taps on the keys of their mobile phones. Unlike email or direct mail, SMS is interactive. According to ClubTexting, an SMS service provider for nightclubs, patrons typically redeem 5 to 20 percent of promotional offers delivered to their mobile phones via SMS, compared to only 1 to 3 percent of promotional offers received through direct mail or e-mail.

3. SMS Marketing helps retailers gather valuable data, such as mobile phone numbers, on consumers who are interested in their products or services. Once you get your customers to opt in (to receive an offer or alert via text message), you can capture them in your database and use that information later for loyalty marketing and customer retention.

4. SMS Marketing can help you generate buzz about your products or services instantly and effectively, as your offers reach consumers while they're actively shopping or socializing — instead of when they're at home (direct mail devlivered to a residential address) or at work (email delivered to the customer's PC).

5. Customer feedback through SMS have proven far more effective than traditional means as SMS is a quick and painless way for customers to communicate with the supplier. An SMS feedback service undertaken by a McDonalds franchisee reported significant improvements to restaurant’s financial performance turning a year-on-year sales decline of 5% into a sales growth of 4% while positive feedback on service levels reduced staff turnover significantly.