SMS or Short Message Service marketing is exactly what it sounds like, promoting a product or service via texting people about it. This method uses permission based text messaging.
The permissions are usually acquired by apps or websites. Many businesses have their personalized website or app where a customer can sign up using their mobile number. The number is than added to an automated database and regular promotional messages are sent to all the numbers in the database. Another method of adding numbers to databases is the use of short codes. A consumer can text the short code to opt in for promotional SMS and opt out using another short code later on.
A notable factor in this regard is that, SMS marketing, used via company’s database, is less likely to bring in new customers as one has to get the permission for sending SMS first. But it’s very much likely to bring an old customer back for more by promoting offers or new collections.
SMS marketing can be a good marketing method because it makes targeting audience easier than any other methods and it is cost-efficient. It is, in fact, one of the cheapest methods of marketing and can lead to increased sales for a lot of brands.
In case of a marketer looking for new consumers for their brand, there are more than a few SMS marketing and bulk SMS services in Bangladesh. No, they don’t work like buying a list of mobile numbers. These services will send the brand’s designed SMS to the users that have opted for getting SMS from them without giving the numbers to the marketers.
One of such services is bulksmsbd.com. They support SMS marketing in Bangla and they have a longer SMS support system which means the marketer doesn’t have to stick to 160 words while designing their SMS. They have three packages, the cheapest starting at 0.25 taka/SMS which doesn’t use brand name or a fixed sender number. The next one is 0.3 taka/SMS. This package uses fixed sender number but doesn’t mask the sender. The priciest one is 0.5 taka/SMS. They include brand name in their promotions and masks sender ID.
Another service like this is zaman-it.com. They have two types of services - masking and non-masking. One will have to provide a one time 5000 BDT for masking name registration. Non masking SMS cost 0.50 BDT/SMS while getting the 2000 SMS package for a year. The price will decrease with increasing number of SMS in the package one gets. Masking SMS cost the double of non masking rates.
While buying a 2000 SMS package, bulksmsbd is more cost-efficient than zaman-it. But larger packages can be bought cheaper from zaman-it.com. Zaman-it doesn’t support long SMS. If one’s SMS is longer than 160 words, they will count it as 2 SMS.
Most SMS marketing services have a cost range around these values and provide similar services. Though the above two come at a more efficient cost than some of the others that have been studied.
Email marketing is a popular method of marketing around the world. It is a form of digital marketing and is used by many brands. This can be a great method of building a better relationship with consumers. That is, if the marketer chooses so.
Email marketing can be both personalized and non-personalized. A marketer can ask an agency to send out emails to all the IDs they have on their database or can build a database of their own by asking their consumers if they are willing to get newsletters/promotional emails from them.
While personalized email list is hard to achieve, it’s easier to target audience, get old customers back and build a loyal community of consumers. Moreover, it’s less likely for the email to end up in the spam or promotions tab and never get seen by the user.
There are marketing services for emails as well. ADN email platform is one of them and it’s providing 50,000 email at only 2,500 BDT as an offer right now. Without the offer being applicable, they will cost 4000+ BDT for 50,000 emails. The package includes dedicated domain name and IP address as well. Whereas xeonbd.com gives 50,000 emails at 3500 BDT.
One of the services mentioned in the SMS marketing sections, zaman-it, have some larger packages that can be more efficient if the brand has a higher budget for their marketing. One of such packages is 5 lac+ emails at 12,000 BDT within a timeline of 3 days. The largest package here is 10 lac+ emails at 20,000 BDT within a timeline of 6 days.
All prices mentioned here are subject to a 15% VAT.
Both of these marketing methods are great ways to establish a community surrounding one’s brand. But there are some pros and cons to both of them.
The bottom line is, whether to use email or SMS for marketing, mostly depends on the target audience and the type of services provided by the brand. But they can both go hand in hand with other methods of marketing. It is recommended that a new company picks the right method depending on their consumer demographic or experiments with them both.