Have you heard of the “marketing funnel”? It’s a powerful new concept in developing a marketing strategy that you can use to increase sales to your target market.

The marketing funnel concept represents the journey a potential customer takes in making the decision to purchase a product or service. For example, 1,000 people may visit your company’s website. A fraction of them will click on a link to find out more. A fraction of that group will then evaluate the product, and a smaller fraction still will decide to buy it.

It turns out that SMS text messaging can be a powerful tool in the marketing funnel.

Advantages of text message marketing

Text messages have the highest open rate of any communications: 97 to 98 percent. Most are opened within three minutes of being received.

Because it’s easy to see which text messages are received and read, they’re ideal parts of a marketing funnel strategy. For example, by collecting contact information through your website or other means, you can prompt potential customers through the successive stages of the funnel with well-written, compelling text messages.

The key is to offer clear value to the prospect at every step — something they need and want.