Everybody is adjusting in today’s ever-changing world, including your prospective clients. Digital communications and text messaging are being used by consumers more than ever.
There’s a lot of competition in digital marketing. A marketer has already copied and revamped the same strategy by the time a business finds a way to stand out from the competition. Speed and convenience are the main factors consumers look for when receiving communication from brands.
Text messaging remains to be a viable communication option for brands to reach their target audience. And assuiming you know what is RCS messaging, we can expect more colour!
It’s been decades that SMS marketing has been proven to deliver results. This is why the open rate for SMS is over 98% because it’s immediate, customized, and dynamic.
What Is SMS Marketing?
Marketing with SMS entails the use of texting to build customer loyalty and advertise products and services. The practice of mass texting is often referred to as digital SMS marketing. Email marketing works a little like this but is much more effective, or so others claimed.
The SMS marketing approach has evolved a lot since the early 2000s. It’s becoming more advanced. Businesses use it to:
- Get customers excited about a new product, discount, or special offer.
- Customer service: Provide customer support and service by interacting with customers on a two-way basis.
- Keep your followers informed by sharing new updates and essential content instantaneously.
- Excite your audience by offering text-to-win lottery or SMS polls.
- Send out a mass text or ask a one-off question to allow people to sign up for your texts.
- Stay in touch with your prospects by sending them occasional texts to stay connected.
Although each of the above examples is under 160 characters in length, SMS messages can now be much longer.
Kinds Of SMS Marketing
The use of SMS marketing can take many forms. It could be anything from a simple text letting your customers know about a sale or simply announcing when your business is open.
Examples of SMS marketing that is most effective include:
- Discounts and promotions
- Coupons via SMS
- A text-to-win competition
- Sales events
- Loyalty programs
- Notifications and alerts
SMS Automation for E-Commerce
Ecommerce clients can use a variety of SMS forms for automated marketing campaigns. Depending on what your brand stands for, you should determine which methods are most suitable for your audience. They’re all like email marketing, except SMS only allows 160 characters instead of an unlimited email.
Welcome Campaigns
You can use this communication channel for your welcome campaign. Just ask for the contact number of new subscribers or clients and include them in your text blast list. If you want an innovative approach, use SMS marketing software like Drop Cowboy Ringless Voicemail & Text, and get ready to blow away your target prospects with a fresh approach.
Order Status Updates
An additional way to improve customer service is by using SMS to communicate with customers instantly about their orders. Not only does this increase customer loyalty, but it also adds to your list of subscribers for SMS marketing. This reduces unnecessary customer support calls and saves on related costs.
SMS Reward Card Abandonment
Just the way you use email to remind visitors to finish checking out with your brand, you should use SMS to remind them by SMS. Statistics show that 79% of regular online shoppers abandoned their shopping carts. You’ll get the best return on your investment using text message automation for shopping cart abandonment.
After-Buying Reviews
Trust between a company and potential buyers relies heavily on product and service reviews. Sending customers an SMS after purchase may be a brilliant idea since they might get unsatisfied. Assuming that your SMS marketing provider can handle it, you might want to ask the customer how they’re getting along with the purchase and ask them to share their feedback in a review either for your site or somewhere else most fitting for your brands like your site or a renowned review site. After the customer makes a purchase, they are then sent an automation message asking how everything went, followed by a review request.
Is SMS Marketing Effective?
Many companies hope to increase customer loyalty by sending or informing customers about sales, specific deals, and events or polling consumers. Managing this platform and communicating with customers directly is exceptionally straightforward, so it’s an effective way to reach customers.
Email marketing campaigns have only an 8% response rate, whereas SMS campaigns have a response rate of 45%. 90% of text messages are read within 3 minutes. On average, 98% of all texts are read. The algorithms of digital marketing channels such as social media mean that your content is only seen by a fraction of your followers—even if you have the best marketing messaging in the world. Moreover, email design costs a lot of time to create but rarely gets read. This is why texting is the perfect marketing channel. It’s easy to send, and your audience reads it almost exclusively.
Why Use SMS Marketing?
Before you implement this strategy, let’s take some time to understand why SMS is so effective.
Avoids Spam Filters
Opening up your Gmail account and looking through your Promotions folder is an excellent place to start. Perhaps you’ve never seen this before, or maybe you’ve just looked at it very rarely. If this is the case, you’re probably sitting on several uncountable commercial emails like anyone else.
You’ll never see promotional emails again if you use intelligent email clients like Gmail. Your mobile phone has a single folder, no spamming restrictions, and the body doesn’t stop it from opening every single SMS message it gets. You can avoid annoying email filters to increase your chances of getting your marketing message read and engaged. You can also use an effective tool like Text Blast Software, which ensures that your message is sent to all subscribers.
It’s Trackable
Some platforms and software present comprehensive reports on each campaign’s success. Instant delivery of messages and responses percentages and much more are part of campaign reporting. There will be an exact count on the number of SMS messages delivered and how long it took. The use of short URLs and unique coupon codes makes it easy to measure your SMS campaign’s success.
Convenient
We use our mobile phones throughout the day more than ever, so we spend more time than ever on our phones. US adults spend an average of nearly four hours each day on mobile devices. Most of us check our smartphones 58 times a day. It is often one of the first and last things we do every day. Sending a text to someone is more convenient than calling or emailing them. This doesn’t annoy the recipient so much.
Gains And Builds Trust
In your role as a marketer, you know how valuable your prospects and customers are. Text-messaging marketing provides businesses a direct and easy way to communicate with their customers, who rely on their devices and phone numbers as more reliable ways to access information. Therefore, they trust you enough to give you their phone number (so that you can text them).
Systematic Delivery
With low spam rates, text messaging is instant and can be responded to in more than a minute tops. Compared to that, the international annual email spam rate in 2018 stood at 55%. Users are also reluctant to click on links in their emails.
Familiarity
SMS text messaging is an older method of text communication that predates apps like Viber or Whatsapp. Communicating with clients is an established, essential method that doesn’t require businesses to push app installations. Your brand can communicate effectively with users without requiring them to learn new technology.
How To Expand Database
Build a database of contacts quickly through SMS marketing, and you are ready to launch your campaign. You’ll grow your list soon if you use these strategies.
Online Purchases
Online businesses have a chance to obtain customer contact numbers as well as other details. For best practices, give customers a choice rather than making them sign up for marketing materials. The greater the percentage of recipients who have opted-in, the higher the ROI since they prefer to be updated by you.
Account Sign-Ups
Are your users required to set up an account in your business? Software as a service (SaaS) companies follow this procedure as standard procedure. Request customers’ mobile numbers as part of the process and make the most of the opportunity.
Physical Store Purchases
You probably have heard something like this before! ‘Would you be up to register for our members’ club to get special offers and discounts?’ You may ask a customer for their mobile number during in-store transactions just as effectively as you might online. Getting to know a customer one on one is not only more satisfying than the familiarity of merely checking a box; saying no is also more complicated than just unticking a box. Are you having trouble building a loyalty program? Increase sign-ups by using incentives and reward strategies.
Webforms
Add a phone number field to your form and watch your SMS list grow. Most likely, you already have a form on your site to collect emails. Include a checkbox that people can use to indicate their consent in writing.
Text-To-Win Contests
Text your phone number to others for a chance to win a prize or to vote in a contest. This is another tactic that relies on keywords. Many businesses may have overused this method. They use it for the reason that it works.
Emails
Send people an email asking them to sign up for text messages. You may find it a bit ridiculous. You need to know that people who care about you won’t want you getting lost in their marketing folder. A call-to-action with a link to your website—or a particular keyword—and your message will be read almost instantly.
As a business owner or marketer, it’s important to understand the significance of lead nurturing in the sales process as well. It’s not just about collecting contact information, but rather building a relationship with potential customers. There are various lead nurturing examples that you can use, such as creating targeted email campaigns that deliver relevant and valuable content to your audience. Another example is to offer personalised recommendations based on their browsing behaviour or previous purchases.
By consistently engaging with your leads in a meaningful way, you can increase the chances of conversion and build a loyal customer base.
SMS Marketing Tips
Ready to start your SMS marketing program? Besides enrolling in a Udemy online lecture on SMS marketing, let these tips help you push through with your marketing campaign. Make sure you understand the best way to optimise your business results before you provide this information.
The following are some tips to help you get started with SMS marketing:
Utilise CTAs (Call-to-Action)
SMS messages are supposed to be short, clear, and easy to understand, but you must remember that they should call to action. If a call to action is included in the message, the customer will know what to do once they’ve finished reading it. Want to know which CTAs to include? Try including these:
- For more information about the company, click here.
- Now is the time to shop.
- You can respond with ‘_____’ to avail of the promo.
- This text will appear at checkout.
- Sign up now.
- Get rewarded today.
- The offer ends soon, so act now.
Find The Perfect Timing
Send your SMS marketing message at the best time since it’s a text sent directly to a customer’s phone. The purpose of your message and the audience will differ for every business.
Compare the results of different times of day to determine what works best for your business. Send an ad two hours before the sale ends so that customers can shop for the deal that is going live. You should give your customers at least a week’s notice before an event and remind them at least one day before.
Select And Segregate Audience
With segmentation, SMS marketing has even greater power. Segmenting your audience can help you treat each customer differently, e.g., adjusting the content based on their preferences, purchases, etc. With segments, you can target specific audiences with your SMS campaign and improve results.
Track And Follow Up
With SMS marketing, the work doesn’t end after you hit send. You can use the results to maximize future campaigns by monitoring outcomes and create alterations for future messages. Keep your metrics consistent from one campaign to the next, and choose metrics that matter to your business. An engagement email is a good way to motivate your customers to act and maintain their involvement with your brand. This helps to drive sales and boost the overall success of your eCommerce business. Here you have a list of re-engagement email examples.
Conclusion
It’s time to get started if you’ve understood SMS marketing’s potential to grow and stabilise your business. Follow the tips above and adapt them as needed. Your customers will love how easy it is for you to speak to them directly without interruptions and without getting sidetracked by other marketing methods.