The benefits of MMS marketing are being discovered by businesses everywhere. MMS is an excellent way to instantly reach your audience using various formats, including text, audio, or video messages.

Using MMS gives you an edge over your competitors utilizing only SMS because MMS messages can be delivered in more appealing, attention-grabbing formats. For example, your text list subscribers are 8x more likely to share this type of content on their social media channels than SMS content.

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If you’re looking for a sure-fire way to build your business and are considering MMS marketing as the solution, we’ve created this complete guide to help you. We’ll show you how to harness this powerful tool as an effective method to grow your company and build your brand.

You’ll learn:

What is MMS Marketing?

MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) marketing is a form of text message marketing that uses multimedia content in texts to engage customers. It’s proven beneficial because users are more likely to read and interact with texts containing pictures, videos, or other media. The stats show that MMS outperforms SMS-only by a mile, again and again.

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4 MMS Marketing Statistics

90% of all MMS more engagement than SMS-only messages.
The MMS open rate exceeds 99%.
In 2016, 387.5 billion MMS messages were sent worldwide.
MMS shows 300% more engagement than SMS-only messages.

What’s the Difference between SMS and MMS?

SMS (Short Message Service) is excellent for quick, text-only communication and is surging in popularity as a marketing method. In contrast to text-only, MMS gives you the ability to send content like images, audio clips, and video, which opens more doors to higher-level communication with your customers.

What Are the Benefits of MMS Marketing?

MMS messages provide unique benefits that other marketing methods just can’t touch.

Higher engagement rates — Personalized, eye-catching content delivered directly to your customers encourages them to engage with you.
Consumer trust — Interactive MMS content involving a dialogue between you and your customers creates a personal connection. And connection builds trust.
Large audience — Because MMS has a wide compatibility range and works on most phones, you’ll be able to share your message with a vast audience.
Saves money — MMS is less expensive and more effective than other methods, like email marketing, which boosts your bottom line.

MMS messages invoke action. They’re opened more, read more, and are interacted with far more than SMS-only messages or most other marketing methods. Subscribers taking action after receiving your message gives you more bang for your advertising buck.

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90% of MMS messages are read within the first 3 minutes.

15% is the average click-through rate for MMS messages.

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Studies show that open rates for MMS are a whopping 99%, with 90% of messages being read in the first 3 minutes! On top of that, MMS messaging has an average click-through rate of 15%. This rate is higher than most social media and email marketing rates on their best day.

These benefits clarify why more businesses should be incorporating MMS marketing into their customer engagement strategy today.

Which Should You Use — SMS or MMS?

What’s the best way to communicate with customers? While that answer is subjective, we can confidently state that campaigns sent using MMS increase opt-ins by 20% over SMS-only campaigns. However, there are a few differences between SMS and MMS to be aware of when choosing which route to take. To succeed in your specific goals, it’s vital to pick the right option that suits your needs.

MMS vs. SMS Subject Lines

Mobile marketing is all about engagement, and a catchy subject line in your MMS campaign increases your odds of engagement right out of the gate. Unfortunately, at this time, SMS can’t incorporate subject lines.

Take full advantage of this option in your MMS messages to grab your recipients’ attention by adding a sentence to your subject line that’s personal and piques the reader’s interest in the rest of your message.

MMS vs. SMS Media Content Options

MMS messages can contain media files and attachments up to 500 KB in size. In contrast, SMS messaging is limited to a certain number of characters per text.

MMS vs. SMS Marketing Character Limits

The character length limit for SMS messages is 160 characters, and if you try to send a message over the character limit, your message will be split into multiple messages. If this happens, your messages may be received out of the correct order, confusing customers trying to read them.

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On the other hand, MMS messages allow you to send longer messages — up to 5,000 characters. MMS messages are the way to go if you want to communicate with your customers without the restriction of having to limit your messages to under 160 characters.

MMS vs. SMS Cost

The cost of sending out a text message or picture can vary from carrier to carrier. The cost per message is $0.01 per SMS message sent and $0.04 per MMS message sent within the US, but depending on where you are in the world, this price can differ. And even though, at first glance, an MMS is more expensive than a standard SMS message, this isn’t the case for every situation.

With an SMS message, the text box cuts off at 160 characters when sending a message. And because of this, longer SMS messages are broken into segments. So, for example, if you want to include more than 480 characters in your message, it’ll break apart and be sent as 4 separate texts instead, and the cost would end up at $0.04 per message.

MMS messages cost more than SMS, but the results show that it’s a worthy investment to boost your engagement rates.

Why It’s Important to Use MMS Marketing

MMS messages offer a unique, engaging, and cost-effective way to reach customers. MMS allows you to send interactive media in text form, a more direct avenue to your customers, than traditional marketing channels like emailing.

With MMS, your business can instantly send pictures & videos containing coupons and special offers to customers. So not only will you create opportunities for more sales, but you’ll also build up customer loyalty. Below is an excellent example of using MMS to send images to encourage subscribers to respond to the question.

MMS Marketing Examples: 4 Brands Absolutely Killing It

1. Avenue Retail

Avenue, a plus-size women’s clothing store, offered shoppers $5 off their next purchase if they joined the company’s MMS campaign. The results of this campaign were phenomenal, with Avenue reporting an ROI of 6,600% and a 97% open rate.

2. Chili’s

Chili’s uses multimedia text messaging to entice its customers with their latest specials. Chili’s subscribers receive text messages from the restaurant informing them of upcoming offers that feature mouth-watering images and links for online ordering.

3.Musician’s Friend

Musician’s Friend rewards customers with MMS coupons when they sign up for the Musician’s Friend Mobile Alert Program. After receiving a welcome text message from Musician’s Friend, customers are gifted with a coupon that can be used right away on the Musician’s Friend website!

4. American Eagle Outfitters

American Eagle Outfitters’ clever MMS marketing strategy involves notifying customers about upcoming deals through text messaging. They also include promo codes and coupon images, allowing buyers extra savings while shopping online or in stores when checking out.

6 Tips to Get Started With MMS Marketing

Now it’s time to get your message across with an MMS marketing campaign. But, before you send out that first text, here are 6 critical steps for success:

1. Create Your Marketing Goal & Stick With It

The first step in any successful marketing campaign is goal setting. What are you trying to achieve? Make your goal specific, measurable, and time-limited, so that it’s easy to monitor your campaign’s progress.

Choose your goal wisely, thinking carefully about what you want to accomplish — one of these 4 categories might be a good fit:

1. Acquire new customers

2. Increase current customer engagement

3. Grow customer purchase amount & frequency

4. Develop brand awareness and improve social media engagement

Any goal that’s important to you, as long as it’s measurable, can be added to your marketing goals.

2. Identify Your Target Audience

MMS marketing campaigns are more effective when you target the correct audience. So, first, design a cohesive message tailored for each type of customer to enhance engagement and increase store profitability. Then, pair your marketing goals (above) with your target audience’s desires for a “one-two” punch toward success.

3. Plan Your Content & Ensure It’s Relevancy to Your Audience’s Interests

Instead of making rushed, last-minute decisions on which visual themes to utilize, prepare your messages ahead of time. Put time and thought into your MMS marketing plan for each of your different audiences and the type of content that will resonate with them most effectively.

4. Use High-Quality Visuals Only

Providing clear and simple images with readable text is the key to creating effective MMS messages. In addition, make sure your visuals are designed for a small screen so that customers can see your content without difficulty or confusion.

5. Ensure You Always Have a Call-to-Action In Line with Your Marketing Goal

You need to be clear on what you want your customers to do after consuming your content. A strong call to action will motivate your audience to take the appropriate action to move the needle toward your desired results.

Ready to create your next CTA? Here are popular CTA’s & power words you can include in your messages:

Common Call-to-Actions

Store Promotions
Feedback Forms
Social Media Sharing
Continue Reading (Point to website)
Event Invitation

Action Inspiring Power Verbs

Subscribe, Register, Join
Click, Text, Call
Buy, Get, Order, Purchase
Follow & Share

6. Plan & Promote Sharing Of Your MMS Content

Asking customers to share your MMS content helps you reach beyond a single marketing channel and gain extra traction from that 1 sent message. Repurpose your content by sharing it on your social media sites, and encourage others who receive the MMS message to do the same.

Step Up Your Results with the #1 MMS Marketing Platform

There’s a good chance you already feel like your business is missing out on an opportunity to connect more with your customers, and we have the perfect solution.

SuperPhone allows you to manage & send multimedia content through our easy-to-use MMS marketing service. No more waiting around for hours, hoping your email gets seen — your customer can receive their coupon or special offer in seconds. And you don’t have to go it alone. Our team of experts is ready and waiting to partner with you to help boost your customer engagement levels.

You can request access today by clicking on the button in the top-right corner.

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Jacob Statler

Writer, traveler, and SEO content marketer

Jacob has a passion for sales, marketing, and adventure.