Twilio for SMS Marketing: 2022 stats and more

Does SMS marketing through Twilio stand a chance in this modern marketing trait? Will it be still relevant in the coming years and beyond?

Well, it’s complicated. But to be straight to the point, SMS marketing is dominating in 2022 with its 19% CTR. Formerly known as ‘outdated,’ needless to say, it has become a part of modern marketing. So, it will sustain for many successful years unless a good alternative pops up— and you can drink to that.

But how Twilio is making a difference? Why is it the buzzword among SMS marketing professionals? We’ll get to that later. First, let’s see why SMS marketing is a thing of future marketing.

Modern business is all about effective communication. The way brands reach out to their customers often make a difference. Since the attention span of consumers in 2022 has dropped to 8 seconds, less than a Goldfish, you can’t expect to create interest among them with minutes-long content.

And when it comes to easy access and instant communication, nothing beats SMS messages right after voice calls. SMS has a significantly higher CTR than Email and Facebook, making it an obvious choice. Also, 98 percent open rate of SMS messages compared to only 20 percent for emails is visibly a winner.

Besides, receiving and sending SMS doesn’t require internet connectivity, making it more accessible than any other media. As 15 percent of Americans don’t have internet access, still they belong to consumers; text marketing can have a direct influence here.

Furthermore, research shows that by 2023, around 80 percent of the global population will own a smartphone. This is a good sign for SMS marketers as the larger number of smartphone users will create more opportunities for effective communication.

Statista shows that advertisers will spend around $336.5B in 2022. It also predicts that business texts will rise to a number of 3.6 trillion by 2023. So, if you are still wondering whether SMS marketing is still relevant in 2022, rest assured it already is and will be so in 2023 and beyond.

Now, let’s get an overview of Twilio, which is slaying the market in 2022.

Twilio integrates easily with a wide range of applications. That’s what makes it a popular choice for marketers, developers, entrepreneurs, and many others. From small to large-scale enterprises with a customer base of fifty to thousands, modern businesses use Twilio for their 1:1 communication and bulk messaging needs on a regular basis.

In fact, the company is making a difference in reshaping the art of SMS marketing in modern days. From sending promotional messages for a small eCommerce store to handling big call centres like M&S’s, Twilio brings the prize home for every promising brand.

Twilio offers intuitive features and powerful connectors to provide top-notch service to the users. While the native gateway deals with most business communications, including text messaging, voice calls, and even data analytics through sister applications— all without any hassle.

So, what’s the problem with it?

Virtually, there is none except for the way of your marketing and promotions create one. Let’s dig into it.

Gone are the days of leaflet distributions or billboard advertisements. Although they are still in practice, customer relationship has more impact on making sales than verbose advertising. From nurturing leads to staying connected with customers even after making successful sales, building relationships pays off in the long run. That’s why Microsoft has found that 90 percent of buyers prioritise customer service as a factor when choosing a brand.

Reaching out to customers is now more advanced, sophisticated, and personal. Twilio SMS is your flexible, conversion-oriented and easy-to-access instant messaging gateway to make campaigns more successful. Besides, marketers nowadays leverage a centralised system aka CRM software to run, monitor, and analyse campaigns. Twilio has the provision for connecting it with user-friendly CRMs like Zoho.

Businesses using Zoho CRM for marketing and other purposes are already engaged in a platform. So, adapting Twilio for SMS communication purposes doubles the agent’s task. Now the marketing rep has to use Zoho CRM for data management while looking into Twilio for the latest status of SMS marketing campaigns. The time that was allocated solely for data management in a single platform is now divided into two!

Not so efficient, right? And this is where marketers face issues with Twilio. Unable to do their job effectively due to time constraints, they wish for a solution that can unify the fragmented time and help them focus on what they are good at— reaching out to customers with messages and increasing revenues for the business.

Every problem has a solution, if not many. Sales reps using Zoho CRM and Twilio SMS can save their time and reduce keystrokes by using a first-class integration solution like the Twilio SMS extension for Zoho CRM.

The speciality of this solution is that you don’t have to leave Zoho CRM to learn what’s happening on the Twilio SMS dashboard. Most importantly, you can send SMS right from the CRM!

As the integration syncs data bidirectionally, you can easily import and export data between those two platforms in a few clicks. Also, each reply that you get from an ongoing SMS campaign on Twilio is added automatically in Zoho CRM as support tickets. Similarly, every contact you have on your CRM is available on Twilio— a win-win for both.

Customer relationship management is now an integral part of the marketing process, which largely depends on the way how brands value their customers. How brands maintain communication with their customers also determines the buying decision, making it equally important. Zoho CRM is the perfect solution to your customer relationship management needs. From user-friendly interface design, powerful features, and advanced security to customisation at its best, Zoho CRM is surely a top-notch choice for small to medium businesses.

While many other CRM software in the market offer integration with Twilio, Zoho CRM comes first for its overly customisable functions, reasonable price, first-class customer support, and numerous vendors. If you have Zoho CRM Twilio integration installed and ever run into issues, know that there are detailed integration help guides like this. As these integrations don’t require you any coding, it’s like plug-n-play!

Consumers these days want to add convenience to their life. Email communication may be cheaper, but the 4.5 percent higher response rate in SMS communication makes it inefficient. Again, a large chunk of customers (60 percent) prefers promotional messages in their SMS inboxes. So, no valid reason may void the legacy SMS marketing in 2022 carries. But you need the right tool. While Twilio offers excellent convenience in running campaigns, merging it with robust CRM software (e.g. Zoho) makes it more functional. Not to mention the value it adds to the business by reducing keystrokes and streamlining communications.