Transactional SMS marketing is the process of using SMS services as campaigns where people can easily receive them and read the details of the message the company is trying to give. This is an attractive marketing tool for companies because it is easy and does not require much technical skill at the company end. Customers can receive the messages in an easy concise manner and this technique of marketing campaign using bulkSMS technology. SMS as a technology began in 1985 when GSM(global system for mobile communication ) standards were set. The first SMS was sent in 1992 from a personal computer. At that decade SMS became hugely popular and rolled out as an easy way of communication among the public. Then with the increase in bandwidth of networks available to the public, the decline of popularity among the public was seen, with an increasing number of interweb chat services increasing all around the world. These were whatsapp, telegram, and the people republic of China’s wechat mobile apps. Online chats were faster and more secure than the SMS, but the SMS did not fade away.
Transactional SMS marketing is different from promotional SMS marketing where in useful information is provided to the already existing customer or the new customer. This type of SMS marketing has popularized the Short messaging service in the company marketing departments. As a brand, the company can utilize Transactional SMS marketing techniques for various non marketing techniques too in the following manner
Many Companies these days use transactional SMS services, and these include banks, social media networking and marketing companies and small businesses that intend to make the trivial matters automated. Examples are banks using transactional SMS to send transaction information when the users request it via SMS. businesses like pizzaHut and Dominoes use transactional SMS features to send its customers the order confirmation and cancellation details, along with the order location, if such a request comes from the customer via a transactional SMS. The independent mailing agency of the United states, USPS also uses transactional SMS to carry out the efficient mail delivery messages to its customers.
Transactional SMS marketing has a high customer reach, that is people open transactional SMS 95 percent of the time, as noted by a scientific survey. The customers open such SMS because they are different from promotional SMS where a long string of information is sent at once to the customer. This type of long string of words sent as SMS format has the capacity to recognise itself as spam. The transactional SMS has industry set limits to it and carries concise and clear information which makes it better than a promotional SMS marketing.
Transactional SMS services come at a low price, and prices of transactional SMS marketing services usually depend on the location of the user, and prices are low since SMS popularity has decreased in recent years. Network providers of many countries provide transactional SMS marketing services at a low cost. Thus large numbers of customer base can be targeted because of such low prices.
Transactional SMS marketing services can be integrated with regional language support, which makes it easier for customers to understand. The developers of transactional SMS marketing have specific APIs(application programming interfaces) integrated in their enterprise portal from which the company sends the transactional SMS.
The reputation and security in both the customer and the company side is maintained by state of the art security services in transactional SMS marketing. This includes number lookup at the company’s portal and two factor authentication(2FA) support for the customer. The customer is sent an OTP(one time password) at the beginning of the transactional SMS request and when the user is verified using their credentials, which is either their phone number or the email address the actual SMS containing user information are initiated. An example of high technology 2FA is advantaSMS voice based system, where the user verification occurs in real time.
Most of the companies that offer transactional SMS services also offer major support for Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) in mobile devices. The customer registration to the transactional SMS service can also come through USSD. unstructured supplementary service data is usually the way one time queries of the customer are sent as the USSD information cannot be stored. This specific integration also means it is very easy to use transactional SMS for the customer
Transactional SMS marketing is different from promotional marketing since DND(Do not disturb) services when activated still allow transactional SMS messages to pass on to the customer. The transactional SMS services can then be sent to the customer at any time of the day, or the customer’s preferred time if the company is using the transactional SMS mostly at the receiving end. The company which is using the transactional SMS features also has the feature to see if the transactional SMS marketing message has been delivered to the customer.
As the internet has given rise to social media networking and the decline of SMS use in the general public, the companies around the world are catching up with the marketing and non marketing capabilities of transactional SMS marketing. Transactional SMS marketing being very advantageous with its ease of use, management and automation, the companies that use it can make serious gains of sales, service and customer satisfaction using transactional SMS. AdvantaSMS is Kenya's top bulk SMS services provider, which includes transactional SMS marketing services in its arsenal of services.
