SMS and dopamine: how you can use it to hook more sellers and book more appointments

SMS falls in the outbound marketing camp. It’s as much interruption as it gets.

But here’s why it’s a great weapon in your marketing arsenal: dopamine.

Human beings seek out dopamine-enhancing stimuli and experiences more today than ever before. Think Facebook, Netflix, Uber Eats…

Dopamine is known as the “feel-good hormone” and releases feelings of joy, excitement, importance and any combination of happiness…

But here’s the rub…while our bodies produce it naturally, our modern lifestyles and the ability to get what we want when we want it, has meant that we have been overdosing on dopamine for years.

And much the same way as any drug addict would tell you, the more you consume it, the less potent its effect on your brain and body will be…

And when that happens, we seek out new “drugs” and dopamine-enhancers to keep feeding our addiction.

Battle of the dopamine triggers

This is why social media is so popular; it allows every person to feel important: think likes, shares, comments and the BIG DADDY: personal messages!

C’mon, you know the feeling: you’re sitting watching TV and that inescapable Messenger tone hits your ears…

It’s like a rush to the ego and anticipation fills your body, making it near impossible to resist checking your phone immediately.

The truth is Messenger, Whatsapp and any other messaging app is designed to trigger a dopamine effect on its recipient. This means people rarely ever delete these apps off their phones…and will reinstall them first when they buy a new phone.

SMS is not dead

But here’s the thing…the fact that the world has moved on from SMS messaging to newer and sexier mediums presents you with an opportunity.

The Messenger and Whatsapp space is saturated…which means that while it’s still effective, it’s just that much less effective.

SMS may be almost as old as email, and like email, it’s still here.

Why has SMS and email not been replaced by on-demand messaging?

I’m no futurist nor technologist, but this is my theory: the non-pushy nature of SMS and email means people can read it and act on it in their own time.

The opposite is true for Whatsapp and Messenger: you know the sender can see you’re online and that you’ve read their message, so you feel obligated to drop what you’re doing (reading to your kids, painting your masterpiece, watching a movie) and to answer immediately.

SMS does not do this. And that’s a good thing.

But you can also do SMS marketing the wrong way. And most people do.

The first lesson of marketing is right there in the word itself: market.

It’s pretty obvious, but if your market doesn’t feel like the message you just sent them (the one that cost you your money) is actually about them, they will ignore you or delete your message.

How does this error look in practice?

Here’s an example: “ABC Estate Agency. We sell homes in the shortest space of time…”

Notice how there is no mention of the market?

That’s a mistake many top companies with expensive marketing departments are making right now; they fail to understand how human beings are wired: we only care about ourselves and what we can get out of something.

So while the SMS tone delivers the dopamine shot to the recipient’s brain, the fulfilment of importance and ego is dashed when they do not even see themselves in the message.

And when you excite someone only to let them down immediately after, you only create negative feelings towards yourself and your brand.

And when you do this…you don’t get your desired outcome.

And that’s bad for many reasons, not least of which is no new deals or opportunities in your pipeline.