A2P SMS stands for Application-to-Person Short Message Service – whenever a person receives a text message from a software program or sends a text message to one. Messages from an application are often automated and trigger-based on a set of rules or conditions.
A2P messaging includes (but is not limited to) marketing messages, appointment reminders, chatbots or virtual assistants, notifications, two-factor authentication (2FA), one-time passwords (OTPs), or PIN codes.
Top 3 use cases for A2P messaging
- SMS marketing campaigns – an effective way to engage with your customers through SMS marketing campaigns.
- Appointment reminder text messages – service business the utilization of appointment reminders to ensure no-show attendance rates stay low and profits keep climbing.
- Authentication and one-time passwords – 2FA (two factor authentication) or One-Time password functionality to keep their user’s online accounts and data safe.
SMS Messaging is an effective communication channel
SMS messaging has the highest open and click rates, and relatively low costs. SMS open rates are as high as 98%, with response rates above 40%, while 95% of all SMS are open and read within 3 minutes! Studies have also shown that on average people reply to an SMS in 90 sec, while they need 90 minutes to respond to an email.
Moreover, average business SMS open rates are almost 5 times bigger than email open rates (20%), while the ratio between SMS and email response rates is even higher: 45% in contrast to 5%. The difference is more than evident.
SMS has good cost-benefit
Digital marketing nowadays has become expensive. If you compare the amount of required investment in some digital channels and the subsequent results, it seems that some of them are not ROI-effective at all. Social networks, for example, are frequently changing the rules of their game and become predominantly pay-to-play platforms.
On the other hand, SMS has proven to be the most affordable direct marketing channel. One of the reasons we have mentioned earlier is extremely high success rates. Did you know consumers redeem SMS coupons 10 times more than other types of coupons? Not bad!
A2P SMS in numbers
No other messaging channel today has success rates, as discussed above. Consequently, A2P SMS market is growing steadily and is estimated to reach $100.00 billion by 2030. Furthermore, analysts say that the number of enterprise messages will be 10 billion SMS a day by the end of 2022, which means that business messaging will account for 25% of the entire global SMS traffic.
Ready to get started?
Understanding the basics behind A2P is a good start for businesses looking to dive into SMS. Our SMS solution can be used as an SMS marketing platform to send texts promoting your latest products and services. You can send bulk SMS, or automate messages depending on customer activity, while simultaneously using our SMS API to ensure you are sending bespoke messages based on customers’ needs.
If you’re ready to get started, get a free trial. Or get in touch with our sales team.
