Influence of Short Message Service (SMS) Marketing on Purchase Behavior of Consumers in Pakistan

Abstract

Mobile Phones have become an important aspect of people’s lives rather than just being a component. With the massive explosion of information and communications technologies (ICTs), there is a rapid expansion of mobile phone services resulting in wide usage of SMS throughout the world. SMS marketing has become a trending cheaper source of communication for companies to be in touch with their customers. With limited research in Pakistan about the factors which directly or indirectly have an effect on consumer attitude regarding SMS marketing, this research attempts to identify whether some of these factors shape consumer buying behavior and their attitude. It was hypothesized that credibility, Informativeness and personalization of sms has a substantial positive effect on consumer attitude towards it, while irritation has a negative association with consumer attitude. Hence all three factors were supported except irritation. Type of this research method is quantitative in nature. Primary source of information is used for data collection. Sample size was 205 respondents who were contacted via social network and questionnaire was designed on google docs. Data was tested using different statistical tools in SPSS such as Pearson correlation and multiple regression approaches. The findings of this research will help marketers to design their campaigns more effectively by identifying the factors that affect consumer attitude and making use of them to improve their communication with customers. Key words: Short message service, information and communication technologies, credibility, personalization, irritation, informativeness