Businesses everywhere are using the power of text marketing to stay engaged with their customers.

Text marketing has many unique advantages for businesses of all sizes. For starters, text marketing gives you a direct line of communication to customers. Services like CoGoBuzz give businesses the flexibility to automate entire text campaigns or send promotions instantly.

Perhaps you’ve still got a few reservations about text marketing. Well, don’t just take my word for it. Here’s five data-backed reasons why it’s a great way to keep your customers engaged.

Text messages are read. Unlike email, it’s rare that text messages slip through the cracks. Whether a text is wanted or unwanted, it almost always gets read, one way or another. Gartner reports that SMS open rates at 98%, with response rates at 45%. This heavily contrasts with their numbers on email, reporting 20% open rates and 6% response rates.

If you want to make sure your customers got the message, texting is the way to go.

Phone calls are disruptive. Got a call from an unknown number? Probably spam. Gone are the days when people would answer every single call they received, regardless of whether they knew the number or not. Last year, the FCC estimated that half of all calls made to US cell phones would be spam. You hate them, I hate them, your customers hate them. I’m sure you would love it if your customers decided to save your number, but that’s just not going to happen. Try texting.

(Bonus Tip: This is also why you should identify yourself whenever you send a text marketing message.)

There’s very little text spam. For some reason, scammers haven’t broken into the texting market. According to Radicati Group, only 1% of text messages are spam. That’s very good news for businesses getting into text marketing. If you’re worried customers are going to confuse your messages with spam, it’s just not as likely.

Customers prefer it. At this point, you may be wondering if your customers actually want to receive text messages from your company in the first place. As it turns out, they sure do! FinancesOnline reports that nearly half (48%) of consumers prefer receiving brand updates via SMS. That’s more than double the next two choices down, email (22%) and app notifications (20%). They also report that 75% of customers actively want offers sent to them via text.

Hassle-free communication. You know what’s a hassle? Having to download an app for every single business you frequent. On top of that, to actually use the app, you’ll usually need to sign up with your personal information. Not only does it take up your phone storage, but it also takes up your time. All of this just to get a discount code.

Text marketing removes these hassles. According to eMarketer, people prefer SMS because there’s no app download required and it’s easy to opt-in. If a customer accidently deletes your app for storage, they’ll stop receiving notifications. If they don’t want your texts? They’ll actively have to opt-out.

Text Marketing With CoGoBuzz

Ready to empower your business’s text marketing? Do it with CoGoBuzz, our state-of-the-art digital marketing service. We’ll set you up with a fully digital, mobile-based loyalty program, letting you intuitively run contests, polls, automated messages, and more. Leveraging powerful WiFi, SMS, and Email solutions, CoGoBuzz redefines your entire digital presence to heighten customer engagement. With our advanced in-store WiFi platform, we enroll customers to your marketing lists automatically, making it easy to engage wherever and whenever.

Click here to learn more about CoGoBuzz!

Has your business tried text marketing? Sound off in the comments!