SMS marketing or also called text message marketing is a huge hit for businesses looking to cover a lot of ground in the market in the shortest duration. SMS marketing is a powerful lead generation machine, paired with features like automated SMS, Bulk SMS and trigger SMS events.
 

If you’re looking to scale up your brand communications, bulk SMS is a great way to reach millions of customers with a specially curated message. You can insert links, images, coupons, alerts or bits of promotional information in an SMS that has a high chance of being read. The biggest advantage of SMS marketing is that it has a high ROI on the low-cost incurred to kickstart an effective campaign.
 

In this post, we’re going to focus on bulk SMS for lead generation.
 

What is bulk SMS and what are the benefits?
 

 Bulk SMS involves sending out highly targeted SMS’s in large quantities to a target demographic of your interest. This technique is used as a lead generation and promotional tool for business looking at cost-effective method of acquiring customers.
 

Among the many benefits of this robust marketing technique, a dedicated and secure SMS gateway can keep track of all your SMS campaigns in a centralized database with special tools to manage your market interactions.
 

Top Benefits of bulk SMS marketing
 

- Cost effective marketing, as you reach millions of people within the shortest duration with the least possible charges using integrated SMS APIs.
 

- High open rate, making SMS the easiest way to guarantee that people view your brand’s message. SMS has a whopping 85% open rate and a 45% response rate, which makes it a great too for market analysis.
 

- Instant & productive delivery, ensuring that your customers receive the message as soon as you send them out, guaranteeing faster business communications and inviting more responses.
 

- High customer engagement, because SMS is delivered straight to a customer’s phone who in turn is quicker to respond than via email, social media or even paid ads.
 

Now that you have a basic idea of this fascinating tool, let’s delve into the lead generation aspect of bulk SMS marketing. In this post, we’ll explore 8 uses of bulk SMS for lead generation.
 

1. Getting your customer’s consent
 

Bulk SMS can be used to generate opt-ins from a huge user base. Legally, you are supposed gain the consent of recipients before sending out automated texts. Hence, an initial message that sums up your brand and it’s offering can do a lot in generating leads.
 

Besides just pitching your idea to gather customer consent, opt-ins play a vital role in portraying your brand values. People begin to notice that you value their experience as a company that’s reaching out to them for their opinion. Using this technique to generate leads guarantees a trusted collection of leads.
 

2. Trigger actions and events
 

Bulk SMS can be used to trigger actions, like generating traffic to your page or application. An embedded link can offer customers direct access to your goods or services. You can even get inventive by offering coupons that can be redeemed at the click of a button, or services that help the consumer make a better purchase decision.
 

The simplicity of SMS marketing at a large scale can generate leads that take actions to promote your brand.
 

3. Referral programs via SMS
 

Another great use of bulk SMS technology is a referral campaign. When you offer customers unique discounts or services for referring your brand to others, they will take action. That’s because they can simply forward the message in a few clicks and gain the full value of your offering. The process of sharing information easily contributes to the effectiveness of your SMS marketing campaign.
 

With referral programs via bulk SMS, you generate more leads and expand your market presence.
 

4. Drip campaigns vis bulk SMS
 

SMS drip campaigns are pre-written texts that can reach customers through an automated interface. This is especially useful when following up on leads. When you can automate bulk SMS marketing, you will be able to follow up on numerous enquiries at the same time.
 

With constant communication with your market, the drip campaign creates a productive way of nurturing your leads into conversions.
 

5. Testing the market response
 

Bulk SMS can be used to test the response to your texts at a large scale, with real-time insights into the recipients behaviour. Since A/B testing is integral to your marketing and sales plan, you can constantly improve your strategy with solid evidence of the market’s response to your SMS.
 

When automated bulk SMS campaigns are tested, you are gaining an edge over the market with accurate data and promoting your brand’s presence at the same time.
 

 6. Mobile optimized SMS
 

If you’ve ever encountered a website that isn’t mobile-friendly, you probably forgot the brand. Mobile optimized links are a way of making navigation via mobile easy. Embedding mobile optimized links can allow more customers to easily take actions when they read your text.
 

Bulk SMS marketing is used to send out mobile optimized links so that the lead conversion rate is higher, when more customers can easily take action after they’ve committed to the offering in your SMS.
 

7. MMS marketing
 

The latest SMS gateway services allow for the use of multimedia in your bulk SMS marketing campaign. Since all your information is stored and managed form a centralized cloud platform, you can leverage high-performing multimedia elements like audio, video, images, links, forms and much more to make your SMS stand out to recipients. When you offer a seamless experience by condensing complex information into bite sized digestible bits, it can drive more leads to your business.
 

The effective use of multimedia in SMS marketing is employed by numerous industries for promotional purposes and even basic market communications.
 

8. Short cod SMS marketing
 

For a bulk SMS blast, short-code numbers are proven to be more effective. That’s because they are easier to remember and much more professional. Whether business-to-business or business-to-consumer, the short-code SMS marketing campaign is likelier to generate more leads.
 

Short code numbers boost brand recognition and can help promote the unique services of your brand to more people in the shortest time span. They also have a higher open rate and opt-in rate, which streamlines your lead generation process instantly.
 

If you’re looking to scale up with the best SMS marketing services, you can get your own dedicated SMS gateway and kickstart the campaign of your dreams. Click here to find out more about getting a custom SMS gateway to send out bulk SMS communications to your market today.