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The Power of Text: What Is SMS Marketing, and Is It For Your Business?

The Power of Text: What Is SMS Marketing, and Is


The Power of Text: What Is SMS Marketing, and Is It For Your Business?

Did you know that the open rate for SMS is nearly 98%?

Because SMS can offer such incredible open rates, it can be one of the best ways to reach your target audience. But if you want to use SMS to market your business, you may have doubts about where to begin.

You might be unsure of how to get the phone numbers for your campaigns. You may also worry about the kind of messages you should send people, once you have their phone number.

This post aims to provide you with some clarity on how SMS marketing works. Once you’ve read this post, you’ll be able to comfortably answer the question “What is SMS marketing?”

Let’s begin!

What Is SMS marketing?

SMS marketing is a means of marketing that’s based on you sending text messages to people. SMS (short message service) is just another way to describe a text message, and the two terms are interchangeable.

This method of marketing works well, as people carry phones with them everywhere they go. This then makes it easy for you to reach your target audience, no matter where they are. 

Additionally, a text message often demands more attention than an email. This is usually down to the fact that not many other companies are using SMS marketing to contact customers.

It’s also worth noting that the notification for a text message often differs to the notification for an email.

SMS notifications are often more audible and can cause the phone to vibrate, whereas emails might not allow for this to happen. Following this, SMS marketing can produce better levels of engagement. That’s because people will quickly check their phone, upon receiving a promotional text message. 

What Can You Do with SMS Marketing?

The way you use SMS marketing is going to depend on your business and the kinds of services you offer.

For an offline business, SMS marketing can be an incredible way to increase foot traffic.

You can use SMS marketing to notify customers of new products you might have in store. Once customers are aware of these new products, they may visit your store to see what is on offer.

You could even use SMS marketing as a means of distributing coupons.

For instance, if you own a pizzeria, you could use SMS to send people a coupon every weekend. In doing so, you may be able to increase the number of people that order a pizza from you, instead of a competitor.

Of course, the concepts mentioned above can also be applied to an online business too.

You can use SMS marketing to promote the release of a new product within your eCommerce store. Or you can use SMS marketing to generate sales, during certain events. An example might include promoting a coupon that’s associated with a particular time of year, such as valentines day.

Finding a Good SMS service

The SMS Marketing platform you use can have a big impact on deliverability rates and how much you can customize your campaigns. 

Ideally, you want to pick a service that caters to your needs.

So, if you deal with a business audience, it might be better to use a business text messaging service, rather than a generic one. Or, if you’re a restauranteur, try to find one that’s designed specifically for restaurant owners. 

By taking this step, your SMS marketing campaigns will be more effective, as the service will offer features that are a good fit for your needs. You can then use these features to create campaigns your target audience will resonate with.   

Building Your Contact List

Before you can run an SMS marketing campaign, you first need to get a list of phone numbers you can send messages to.

But you can’t just buy a list, as you need to acquire explicit consent before you send people SMS marketing messages. Failure to obtain consent may result in you breaking the law. 

One of the best ways to build your list of contacts is by getting people to send you a text message, so that they can join your list.

You might ask people to text a keyword to a specific phone number. Once people do this, they’ll be on your list and you can send them relevant marketing messages.

If you want to improve your odds of success, it’s essential you give people an incentive to join your list.

You can do this by providing people with a special offer, should they join your SMS list. So, if you own a restaurant, you might say that people can get 10% off their next order if they text “offer” to your designated SMS marketing number.

You can promote this incentive to your email list or even on your social media profile. 

How to Get Results with SMS Marketing

Though SMS marketing is relatively foolproof, you may struggle to see results if you ignore certain fundamentals.

You need to make sure you include a call to action in each of your marketing messages.

Though it might sound odd, a lot of people will just ignore your marketing if you don’t tell them what to do. Thus, whenever you send out a message, be sure to tell people what you have on offer and what people need to do if they want to benefit from this offer.

You also want to pay attention to the timing of your messages. If you’re trying to get people to order pizza, you’ll probably get better results by sending a message around 6 PM as opposed to 1 PM.

The Value of Experimentation

If your results with SMS marketing reach a plateau, it’s worth conducting some experiments to see how you can take things to the next level.

You could do this by sending out a range of different offers and then observing which one generates the most engagement.

You might even want to experiment with the time you send your messages. In doing so, you may be able to find a ‘sweet spot’ wherein you’re able to generate the most engagement.

If you’re struggling to come up with marketing experiments, consider taking a look at what your competitors are doing.

By signing up to their text message marketing lists, you may discover a range of tactics that’ll help improve your campaigns.

Of course, it’s worth noting that you can also learn from companies that aren’t your competitors. For instance, if you run a B2C company, it could still be a good idea to sign up to a B2B list.

By studying the tactics used in other industries, you may be able to uncover tactics that nobody else in your sector is using. If you use these tactics, you may experience great results, as your methods will be ‘cutting edge’ when compared to your competitors.

So – What Is SMS Marketing?

Now that you’ve read this post, you should find it easy to answer the question “what is SMS marketing?”

Like all forms of marketing, you’ll need to run many campaigns before you understand the ins and outs of SMS marketing. As you do this, you’ll understand how to get people to join your list and how you can write text messages that’ll generate a response.

SMS marketing isn’t easy, and so you’ll definitely hit some snags along the way. But if you keep going, it won’t be long before you start to wonder how you managed to make money without SMS Marketing. 

Need some help attracting customers to your business? Check out this post to learn how PPC marketing can help you reach your target market. 

Business

Incorporate an SMS Campaign In Your Marketing Strategy

Incorporate an SMS Campaign In Your Marketing Strategy


Should You Incorporate an SMS Campaign In Your Marketing Strategy?

In the ever-changing digital landscape, attention is everything. The late 90’s was the golden age of email marketing. Companies enjoyed open rates of over 95%. That’s what you call getting the audience’s attention.

In 2018, an SMS campaign can be as effective as email marketing was back then. With nearly 90% of millennials having their smartphone to hand 24/7, and 80% of them reaching for it as the first thing they do every morning, the attention is firmly placed on smartphones.

With that in mind, businesses are awash with how they can grab the attention of the market. Many worry that emails go unopened, and Facebook is too distracting to be able to grab a users attention for any longer than a few seconds.

That’s why SMS marketing may just be the approach you should be taking in 2018. Time to flip your marketing on its head and get some attention.

How Can an SMS Campaign Improve Your Marketing Strategy

With the worldwide spend on digital marketing expected to hit 306 billion US dollars in 2020, marketing executives are getting creative in developing the best techniques to reach their desired audiences.

Content marketing has become huge in the last few years and continues to be one of the main focuses for marketing departments, but a new and emerging trend of SMS marketing campaigns has been hitting the ground in 2018.

To explore why SMS is becoming so popular for businesses, we’ve compiled seven reasons why you should be including an SMS campaign in your marketing.

Let’s jump in.

1. SMS Messages Reach Your Customers

Text messages have an open rate of 98%. With rates like that, you can see how far an SMS campaign can push you towards reaching your customers. Customers are much more likely to react and act when receiving a message that comes from an SMS message.

With more and more email marketing campaigns clogging up customers inboxes, marketers need to explore new options to reach their desired audiences. SMS messages could be a hidden gold mine.

2. Keep It Short and Sweet with SMS

Most service providers have a limit on SMS to 160 characters. What this means is much like Twitter, if you have something to say, you better keep it short.

This helps to make you get to the point with your message and really drive home a point with your audience.

Make sure to include strong call-to-action in your SMS campaign, consider using a service like Betwext texting to grab your audiences attention fast.

3. Immediate Results and Immediate Action

When you send out an SMS, you are almost guaranteed the majority of your consumers are going to read the message immediately. What that means is if you can create a strong call-to-action you can almost immediately see results.

With most people reading text messages within the first three minutes you’ll find out pretty quickly if your campaign is doing what you want it to do or not.

You could even use the SMS to drive immediate action by inviting customers to a flash sale that finishes at 5 pm that day. Companies like Dominos pizza do this constantly and it’s a very successful way to get immediate results.

4. Off the Charts Customer Satisfaction

One of the most underappreciated parts of the SMS campaign is the level of customer satisfaction it garners. In a world where paper receipts and keeping track of files has become tiresome, companies interacting with their users with text messages has revolutionized customer satisfaction.

You can see businesses from food delivery services to dentists utilizing SMS to keep their customers in the loop and to give great service.

5. SMS Campaigns Are Cost Effective

When company spending becomes a concern many companies turn to the marketing department to make cutbacks. The great news about SMS marketing is it’s a very cost-effective way to reach your audience.

For companies with tight budgets and non-profits who rely on donations, you don’t need to invest in big teams of people to craft your marketing message. An SMS campaign will allow you to send out your message to your audience by only spending a few cents per message.

ROI for SMS campaigns are usually much higher than other marketing messages, so not only do you save money by hiring no marketers, you can make money from doing an SMS blast.

6. Open and Response Rates Are High

You’ll find that many marketing channels incorporate a spray and pray strategy. The beauty of SMS marketing is that regardless of your internet connectivity or the time of day, you have much higher chances of getting your message seen.

With people checking their mobiles constantly throughout the day, text messages have a much higher chance of catching the attention of your audience. When you compare that email marketing open rates sit at on average 27-38% compared to 90%+ for SMS messages, it’s easy to see why so many people are turning to SMS.

You’ll also find that with SMS campaigns your response rates will be better. SMS response rates are far superior to alternatives like mobile advertising. Prompts to download an app, for example, are about 3X more effective via SMS compared to mobile advertising.

7. SMS Is Unobtrusive

One of the greatest strengths of SMS is that it’s unobtrusive. To opt into an SMS campaign requires you to give prior authorization.

What that means is that an SMS campaign will only target people who have a genuine interest in your product or service, making your messages less likely to annoy them.

This makes SMS a great alternative to direct calls from a call center which is widely regarded by many as a nuisance. The great thing about SMS is although many people open them straight away, they don’t demand immediate action.

So if your customer is in the middle of something, they can put it on hold till later.

Time to Make Your First SMS Campaign

With people increasingly becoming aware of businesses using SMS, the time to get started is right now for any businesses wanting to expand their marketing efforts.

For more information on how to get the best out of your businesses marketing strategies, check out our other posts.