SMS has been around for almost 25 years now—a relic by today’s incredibly fast pace of technology. Yet, it’s still widely used all over the world as one of the primary means of communication, boasting a staggering 98% read rate for the 16 million text messages sent per minute. The Philippines alone sends out 400 million text messages per day!
But what makes text messaging relevant in an era slowly being dominated by newer and more advanced means of communication?
SMS is affordable
Text messaging is generally more affordable than calls and internet-based services. For as low as PHP 10 per day (depending on your telco), you can already communicate with the over 100-million other phones in the country. Sure, you can make the argument that offers for Facebook, WhatsApp, and similar messaging services cost even lower, but remember that not everyone has a smartphone, and those that do aren’t always connected to the internet. Based off purely the amount of Filipinos you can reach at any given time, SMS’ affordable rate is still king.
SMS works smoothly on any mobile phone
As mobile apps become more intuitive and useful, their specs requirement become much higher. If you’ve been using a smartphone for the past few years, you might have noticed that after a few updates, social networking apps load slower and slower on the same phone to the point of being frustrating to use. On the other hand, SMS just works. It doesn’t matter if you have the latest iPhone, the cheapest sidewalk dumb phone, or anything in between; as long as you have a network signal, you can text smoothly. It’s not dependent on the horsepower or platform of your device. And unlike data or Wi-Fi connections, texting doesn’t leech the life out of your phone’s battery.
SMS has an established and widespread GSM network
Being one of the oldest communication standards, the GSM network that text messaging uses has had ample time to reach even the furthest corners of the country. That means whether you’re climbing a mountain, traversing a forest, or lounging on an island somewhere, your mobile phone should get at least a 1G or 2G signal. Though you can’t upload pictures of your crazy adventures, you can let your family and friends know that you’re alive and well via text. It’s just that reliable. Well, mostly reliable.
SMS is mostly reliable
For the most part, SMS is unfailing. It’s there when you have no other means of communication. However, it’s annoying that even though there’s network signal even in the middle of nowhere, we’re left raising our phones in the air every time we step into a basement or a thickly walled building. And come holidays, text messages are delayed due to networks being too congested with the sheer number of messages being sent simultaneously. But that’s physics and network limitations and we can’t really do anything about those. On any regular day though, SMS is more reliable than data.
SMS habits are hard to break
Unless you were been born yesterday, you’ve likely accumulated more hours texting than you have instant messaging. Admit it, you’ve texted while you were in the middle of a class, the road, or a workday. SMS messaging is so ingrained into our routine that when we open our phones, one of the icons we instinctively open first is the SMS folder. When we’re too lazy to open our data or Wi-Fi connections, we just text. And when we receive new SMS messages, we open them even for the briefest of moments. We easily swipe away emails and chat popup heads, but with messages, it’s just second nature to open them.
As SMS remains viable, so does SMS marketing. Start your own campaign today by visiting https://www.mybusybee.net/ (or follow our Official Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/officialbusybee.textblast/) and contacting (02) 929-2222 or (63) 917-837-2000.