Advertisement trends – SMS marketing gains popularity

LAHORE – They say that advertising always pays-off in one way or another. Thinkers of this field have derived another method of advertising which is rated to be one of the fastest spreading and effective marketing techniques; it is called Short Messaging Service (SMS) advertising.
With Pakistan occupying a slot in top five messaging countries, advertisers are using the fashion of ‘texting’ for a greater cause. All kinds of businessmen, solicitors, service providers and vendors are turning to the SMS advertising, as a great response has been observed through this new age advertising technique.
“It’s a lot more effective than TV, radio, billboards, newspaper and pamphlets,” says Ishtiaq Khan, a tax consultant. Ishtiaq says that it is easier to penetrate through the target market as the SMSs are mostly sent to people who needed such services.
“I am a tax manager, so I took a list of numbers from the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and SMS-ed my ads to them only, as I know if they have a business they might need a tax manager,” added Ishtiaq. He said the receiver takes more time to read a message than a TV or a billboard viewer, which does the magic.
“A great number of people also get annoyed by the SMSs; this way it is a lot similar to telemarketing; most of the time you hit on target and if sometimes you don’t its okay – plus its so cheap that we don’t mind a few irritated customers,” smiled Ishtiaq.
There are two ways of using this method. First is by outsourcing the SMS advertising scheme to any advertising company, the second and more popular of the two is attaching any sim card with a computer and advertising by own self. Special software programs are being designed to send SMSs to target markets. These software programs are readily available in market for Rs 1500 to Rs 2000.
By the help of SMS bundles and packages, a salesperson is able to send thousands of messages to the target market. There are a large number of SMS bundles offered by cellular service providers. From astonishing Rs 125 only, a salesperson is able to send ads to more than 9,000 cell phone users. Abbas Khan, a marketing expert, said this technique is expected to gain more popularity.
“It’s very consumer-friendly, as you don’t need to jot any information down; the SMS is saved in the inbox automatically and you can find it whenever you need,” said Abbas. He said an SMS is something very personal; SMS readers have a great chance of calling back on a SMS ad as it is more convenient.
“The consumers that callback are already screened as less effort is required in convincing a buyer,” added Abbas. He also said that acquiring telephone numbers of the target market is easy as people could be separated on the terms of geography, occupation, age and various other categories. Abbas Khan says that the trend of SMS marketing has multiplied owing to SMS bundles provided by cellular companies.
According to international researches, in SMS usage growth, Pakistan occupies top slot in Asia Pacific, and by 2013 the volume of messages will doubled to 10 trillion. That is, the SMS traffic will grow double in coming two years. A report issued by PTA on SMS traffic trends in local and global markets says that a total of 151.6385 billion text messages were exchanged by cellular subscribers in fiscal year 2009-10, generating revenue of Rs 40.76 billion.
This figure translates into 1532 SMS per subscriber in a year or 128 SMS per subscriber in one month. Average price of one SMS is said to be at 27 paisas, making SMS adverting one of the most inexpensive marketing technique present in today’s time.