SMS marketing allows you to reach your customers directly and personally. It uses text messages to notify customers of promotions, special offers, and sales events. While this is an effective marketing tool, it’s often misunderstood. You need a strategy to maximize the return on your SMS marketing investment.
Find Your Audience
Your customers are not all the same. You need to divide them into groups with similar interests. Start by placing them in demographic data, purchase history, and browsing behaviour categories. By doing this, you can target specific groups with relevant text messages. Personalizing your message in this way develops brand loyalty, and you can target certain groups for very specific sales.
Save bulk messages for general campaigns. For example, someone who owns a clothing store would send text messages about their young miss line of clothing to only their younger customers. This way, they aren’t bothering customers who wouldn’t be interested. Bulk messages about general sales events would go out to everyone.
Once you have an established list of customers that are organized into specific categories, integrate your SMS campaign with other marketing tools such as emails, your website, and social media. By doing so, you’re reinforcing your marketing messages and improving your overall effectiveness.
Create Interesting Text Messages
Enhance your customer’s experience by personalizing your text messages. Be sure to include their name and mention your past interactions with them. This makes every text sound personal and relevant. Your texts will sound more like a friendly message than a cold business announcement.
Be direct and get right to the point. Most texts are only 160 characters. Use plain English and avoid abbreviations. Your messages need to be clear and concise. Customers can ask for further details when contacting you or entering your business. Include specific data and times for promotions, and be sure to indicate when the sale or coupons expire. If they receive your message and are left confused, they are likely to ignore it.
At the end of each message, include a clear call to action. Ask them to take advantage of an offer, visit your website, or provide feedback. The call to action should guide them to the next step with clear instructions. Adding a call-to-action button simplified the process. The CTA button could be for the following:
• Show this text
• Click here
• Text to win
• Text to vote
• Buy now
Timing is Everything
The time of day when you send your text messages with SlickText, is crucial to a successful campaign. Send them when your customers are most likely to read them and respond. This is usually during regular business hours. That way, you’re not interrupting their evening. Never send text messages in the middle of the night. The only thing you’ll accomplish by doing this is to annoy your customers. Instead of being excited about your announcement of a new promotion, they’ll want to unsubscribe immediately.
These messages also need to be sent close to the promotional event but not too late for people to take advantage of the offer. For example, the ideal time to remind customers of a grand opening would be 24 hours before the store opens. Most importantly, don’t overwhelm them with messages. One will be enough if you stick to creating clear and concise texts.
When sending your text messages, make sure you are complying with all privacy and telecommunication regulations. Otherwise, you could be facing steep fines and penalties that can tarnish your reputation. Always get the customer’s permission before sending them texts. Have them subscribe to your communications and have an easy way for them to unsubscribe. When you want customers to sign up for text messages, ask them to opt in through your website, social media, newsletters, snail mail, or at the point of sale.
Read Also: Finding the Best Dentist in Mission Viejo
Conclusion
In addition to the above-mentioned tips, routinely monitor your SMS marketing campaign results. Analyze metrics like the delivery rate and conversion rate. Pay attention to your customers’ feedback too. This gives you a clear idea of the effectiveness of your campaign and how to maximize it.
