Amidst quarantine-induced Netflix binges and the rising infamy of Tik-Tok, studies are reporting a 14% increase in mobile usage by consumers. Marketing gurus often state to “meet your customers where they are.” During a Covid-19 lockdown, Friendemic encourages dealers to meet them metaphorically with the help of 1:1 video, website chat and SMS marketing.
Recently, Friendemic conducted a study to determine if the long-utilized best practice of marketing to consumers with an MMS (multimedia message) versus an SMS (short message service) has as many benefits as is often assumed. Using Reputation Accelerator, we texted over 300,000 review invitations to dealership customers, asking them to rate and review their experience with their dealer. One group received a message with the dealership image in the text (MMS) while the other group received a plain text message (SMS).
The results? While we expected that messages with images would generate more reviews, we saw virtually no difference. In fact, a slightly higher number of recipients (0.25%) viewed the SMS message, and the amount of feedback left was unchanged. Our recommendation: you can remove the image from your Friendemic text invites and save the clutter!
Note: messages were only sent to customers who agreed to receive a text message from the dealer. While universally known, it is always our best practice to remind dealers that obtaining consumer consent is required for any text messaging.