Today there are numerous marketing channels and it could be pretty challenging to choose the right marketing platform for your business. Conventional techniques like TV and print still remain quite a costly affair while email and mobile advertising are struggling against spam filters and ad-blocking. However, sending text messages or SMS has proved to be an effective way for businesses because of its incredibly high opening rate of almost 98 percent and an inherent ability to boost consumer engagement while consistently growing your business.
SMS marketing strategy is often ignored or under-utilized simply because of its simplicity. However, SMS marketing is a powerhouse and no business should undermine the efficacy and importance of such a marketing platform. Just because it operates on simple technology, nobody should assume that it is not versatile or vibrant. SMS marketing strategy definitely deserves to be treated with immense respect because it is a powerful and robust marketing channel even after 26 years since its inception. In this context, you must understand that there are several reasons why your business must implement SMS marketing as an integral part of your marketing mix.
- SMS marketing strategy is certainly cost-effective and budget-friendly. You could send bulk text messages at nominal rates. In fact, there are many cheap SMS providers who help in sending mass text messages at highly reasonable rates.
- More than 97 percent of the recipients read an SMS within just four minutes.
- About 19 percent of the recipients would be clicking a link present in your SMS campaign as opposed to just 4.2 percent people clicking a link in your emails.
- 30 percent of your SMS campaigns obtain response rates of over 30% on an average in comparison to merely 4% for emails.
SMS marketing strategy must be integrated into your marketing mix for achieving growth and success. However, there are certain rules to be followed when you are thinking of chalking out your SMS marketing plans. Businesses must abide by the existing rules and regulations associated with SMS marketing. Seek professional assistance from reputed organizations such as Simple Texting for perfect SMS solutions.
Rule: Entice with Valuable Offerings
Do not forget that your prospective customers would be seeking valuable offers. Ensure that the SMS that is delivered to your client has a mind-blowing or enticing offer that they cannot resist. Try to think from your customer’s perspective. If you put yourself in your customer’s shoes, you must ask yourself if your offer would at all interest your prospective customers. Will your offer motivate them to checkout, email, or call or visit your store? Always remember that nobody from your target audience would like to get a pointless or worthless offer from any company or brand that they are interested in and they love it. You would always want your clients to love you and be happy with your quality and services.
Rule: Always Respond Quickly
As per https://www.forbes.com, as per T. Allen Hanes, an authority builder, an organization could lose the trust of their loyal customers in the event of delays in replying or responding to their email or text. When a long time has gone by after a consumer’s contact with any small company and the lack of follow-up could lead to a rapid erosion of trust.
No need to start collecting SMS numbers unless you are in a position to send instant confirmation to your subscriber’s telephone. Suppose that trigger message comes weeks or even months later, your prospective customers may not be interested anymore and you could potentially lose a substantial part of your reach.
Rule: Start the Text Message with Your Offer
Your text message must be limited to just 160 characters so your SMS marketing must focus precisely on to the point, clear, and concise content. Do not ignore the fact that your audience comprises extremely busy people and if you beat around the bush and waste their time, they may just feel fed up. If you are placing the offer right at the beginning of your message, it would surely attract maximum attention.
Rule: Keep Things Exclusive
If you wish to make the fullest use of your SMS marketing campaign, you must come up with exclusive offers so that the recipients or the readers of your SMS would be immensely impressed and feel as if they are an integral part of something incredibly amazing and special. Nobody feels excited about offers that are available to each and every one. Exclusive offers create a sense of urgency and they grab your customers’ attention. Your customer would initiate the buying process at once if he is made to feel valued and special.
Rule: Highlight Your Brand Name
There are various techniques for making sure that your target audience gets to learn precisely from where the SMS is being delivered from. You could use the sender ID for this purpose. Once the target audience gets the SMS, you could consider signing off.
Rule: Always Seek the Services of the Entire Team
For optimizing your SMS marketing strategy, it is of vital importance that all your team members are equally enthusiastic and dedicated about boosting your business. They must know clearly the company or the brand’s goal and vision. Strategy meetings must take place to ensure that there is perfect alignment in the message and in the staff. Organize meetings on a regular basis for perfect alignment.
Rule: Focus on Making It Human
Bots are supposed to be a strategic and quick way of reaching your target audience directly yet, bots should be regarded primarily as effective tools meant for striking initial engagement for auto-answering common questions. In this connection, we understand that more often than not, a bot could be a consumer’s first brand interaction. You must, therefore, make it a point to ensure that the bot is actually supported with the perfect personality, tone, and language for authentically supporting your unique brand identity.
Conclusion
You must put the right people to manage your SMS marketing strategy. Suppose there is a customer who is willing and waiting to connect with your business in real-time, you must necessarily place your top people strategically to deal with such a customer. You must necessarily incorporate a link or CTA into your SMS content. Your interaction with a customer or potential customer must be somewhat personal in tone. Your SMS must contain customizable and interactive elements that would be providing the customer with an opportunity to know more about your specific product.