SMS remains a leading less costly promotional platform, experts say

The Short Message Service (SMS) platform has remained a reliable form of communication in the digital revolution in Uganda, enabling people with or without smart phones to stay connected. 

According to experts, SMS has remained a reliable platform to pass vital information in creating awareness to reach the end user with messages of health, education and agriculture.

“Contrary to many beliefs that the internet, especially internet-based messaging platforms have dislodged SMS as a messaging tool, SMS is still a powerful platform whose power is not fully understood and leveraged by marketing and communication decision-makers,” said Mathias Kamugasho, the Managing director for Service Cops Limited.

Service Cops Limited is a Ugandan Fintech, ICT and BPO firm, whose primary focus is to develop solutions that not only changes how organizations work, but also helps in cutting costs, and increase efficiency and competitiveness. 

Service Cops partners with over 12,000 education institutions, 18 commercial banks, 5 major telecoms and a number of other payment aggregators in Africa to extend our service touch points to over 30 communication channels.

Kamugasho explained that the SMS solutions is a leading communication tool as well as sales/advertising/marketing strategy.  SMS are universal and have other unique unrivalled advantages over other avenues.

“SMS boasts an impressive 98% open rate, far exceeding that of Facebook Ads, WhatsApp, voice, and radio advertising. This means your message is almost guaranteed to be seen by your target audience, ensuring maximum reach and impact,” Kamugasho stated.

According to the Uganda Communication Commission (UCC) 2022 market report, there were 38.1 million connected devices, up from 37.2 million in Q3 2022.  Of these, 25.8 million or 68% of all connected devices were either feature phones (23.8 million) or basic phones (2 million).

This is nearly 2 million more than the traditional media audience - estimated at 24 million by the Ipsos 2022 National Audience Measurement Survey.’

By contrast, smartphones were only 12.2 million- even though smartphone owners are also an addressable audience via SMS.

According to the Q2 2022 report, SMS remained the foundational communication channel especially for Digital Financial Services. Of the 11.8 billion SMSs sent in this quarter, 9.01 billion were Application-to-Person (A2P) messages and 2.76 billion messages were Person-to-Person (P2P) messages. 

Bruhan Kyamanya of Emedia Communications said that SMS as a form of communication has been reliable and tested over time through classes of people and the messages they want to communicate.

“It is instant in delivery to high engagements, the SMS messages are delivered within seconds as compared to other channels as a medium of communication, whether someone has a smart phone or not. Everyone uses it as a reliable channel of communication in meetings like weddings, companies wowing customers among others,” he said.

The experts tip that by embedding SMS services into your marketing strategy, it is tapping into a powerful communication channel that significantly enhances business's growth and success.

“SMS services offer a cost-effective way to reach your target audience. You can send bulk messages at a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising channels, maximizing your return on investment,” Kamugasho argues.

He noted that personalized and targeted messaging enable segmenting of the audience based on their preferences, purchase history, and demographics without being affected by algorithm changes.