SMS Marketing Insights for Growing Businesses
Practical thinking on how businesses can reach more customers, fill gaps faster, and use SMS without adding complexity.
Latest SMS Marketing Insights
SMS marketing insights help businesses understand how to reach customers at the right time, improve response rates, and build a usable audience. Here you’ll find practical thinking on customer capture, timing, compliance, and cost.
Most Marketing Fails After the First Visit
Most marketing is built around one objective. Get people through the door and to be fair, a lot of it works.
People find you. They book. They visit. They spend. Then they leave.
Why “Free” Marketing Often Costs More Than SMS
Most businesses think email is the cheaper option. But once platform fees, design time, and low open rates are considered, “free” marketing can become surprisingly expensive.
Your Customers Haven’t Forgotten You. They’ve Forgotten To Come Back
Most customers don’t actively decide not to return. They simply stop thinking about you.
Why Consent Matters in SMS Marketing
Why Consent Matters in SMS Marketing (And What Happens When It’s Ignored)
Most Marketing Costs More Than You Think
What starts as a single monthly fee rarely stays that way.
Costs build quietly as you begin to rely on the platform.
What Starts as One Fee Rarely Stays That Way
Most marketing platforms promise simplicity, but the setup tells a different story. Here’s why SMS is different.
You’re Already Paying for Customers You Can’t Reach
Most businesses only capture the person who booked. Everyone else walks away.
Your Marketing Ideas Don’t Happen at Your Desk
Good ideas rarely arrive when you’re sitting at a desk. They come when you’re in the business. On the floor. Talking to customers. Or not working at all.
You Don’t Need IT to Start Using SMS Marketing
There’s a pattern with most marketing platforms. The pitch is simple. The reality isn’t.
Why Timing Matters More Than Marketing
New marketing channels are fighting for attention. SMS does not need to.
Start using SMS marketing the right way
“We have been customers of Connect98 across the group for several years now and consider them to be a valued business partner. Their service allows us to create a very valuable database of customers mobile numbers.
A short message with a little incentive always generates more business. Text marketing also helped us enormously when we came out of lockdown. It was the quickest and easiest way to let our customers know we were open again.”
Vinay Bhudia, General Manager,
Tiger Bay International
“One of the most useful features of the Connect98 system is that we can send messages out from Head Office to all our customers, or just locally from any location. We also run competitions using different keywords and always get a great response from that.
Because the response to text is almost immediate, we can send out announcements relating to real-time weather conditions, eg ‘Come and bowl when it is too hot, too cold, too wet...’”
Ana Pinto, Head of Marketing,
Namco Funscape (10-pin bowling)
“Vaping manufacturers are continually adding new products and different, updated vaping devices to their range. Rather than waiting for customers to come into any of our shops to see what is new and available, we often send a text message. We can include in this a link to our website where they can explore the entire range.
I would recommend Connect98 to any retailer that wants to encourage repeat business. It is a great way to stay in touch.”
David Carmichael, Owner,
Carmichaels Vaping
“We started using Connect98 a few months before lockdown and thank goodness we did. Coming out of lockdown it seemed like the whole country needed a haircut and every hairdresser was trying to greet them. We got in first, sent a message out as soon as Boris made his announcement and within 24 hours nearly 20% of our database had made appointments. It is all about getting there first. You know what they say, ‘if you snooze – you lose’.”
Lisa Harris, Owner,
Colour By Lisa
“The course was flooded a few years back and we had to let all our members know that it was unplayable. There was no point in sending an email as that may not be read for days. We ended up phoning all our most likely effected members. Following that incident, we decided to look at SMS as a medium for communicating quickly, mainly because of its instant impact and high open-rate.
The Connect98 platform suited all our requirements and even allowed us to capture the numbers of our ‘Pay & Play’ visitors. We now use it on a regular basis to advise of spare Tee times and Clubhouse events. We are very happy with the service they provide.”
Andrew Killing, General Manager,
Thorney Park Golf Club
“Connect98 has been extremely useful to us in keeping all my therapists busy throughout the day. We can determine when our advance bookings have dropped, and send out incentives to fill those slots. We also use the loyalty scheme rather than printing and stamping cards.”
Rumana Merali, Owner,
Rumiz Beauty Studio
“At Santa Pod we have been using texting and Connect98 for a long time. We are able to grow the size of our customer database when we interact with them on event days.
Between races we ask visitors to text us using ‘POD’ to 60163, followed by a record they would like to hear, or a Birthday/Anniversary they would like read out. With Connect98’s real-time monitoring our PA announcer is able to see these requests as they come in. We are also able to capture the mobile number and adding it to our database, we then have more people to market to for future events.”
Caroline Holden, Commercial Manager,
Santa Pod Drag Racing