SMS Marketing is a great approach to vary your marketing channels because text messages are personal, immediate, and always read.
As the fight for customer attention heats up, texting allows you to communicate directly with customers in a way that requires no effort to manage and sustain.
What is SMS Marketing?
The use of text messages to advertise a company's products and services, as well as to foster client loyalty, is known as SMS marketing. Mass texting or Bulk SMS is a term used to describe this type of digital marketing technique. It works in a similar way to email marketing, but it has been proven to be far more effective.
Since the early 2000s, SMS marketing has come a long way. It is used by businesses to:
- Increase sales: To increase revenue, send out promos, discounts, and limited-time deals.
- Create connections: Use two-way discussions to provide customer care and support.
- Engage your listeners: Share vital updates and new content as soon as possible.
- Excite the audience: Organize text-to-win contests or text-to-vote polls.
- Obtain leads: Allow potential consumers to subscribe to SMS messages or submit one-time questions.
- Environment takes precedence: Follow up with leads and send them a text every now and then to keep them interested.
What is the purpose of SMS marketing?
SMS messages can be utilized in a variety of ways. Here are some of the most typical SMS use cases to help you understand what you can do with SMS and how it might benefit your company.
Promotions for retail or e-commerce that are only available for a limited time
Coupons and promos are a great method to get more people to come into your store or visit your website. If you're running a limited-time sale or promotion, you'll definitely want as many people as possible to know about it. SMS is a terrific way to deliver these offers to clients, especially if you want to reach out to them while they're on the go. You can be sure they won't miss out if they don't receive the message in a timely manner.
Important information about upcoming events or Customer Orders
When it comes to planning and executing an event, there are a lot of moving components. The more people who will be attending the event, the more difficult it will be to deliver all of the important information to them.
Changes, cancellations, general information, and updates may all be conveniently communicated by SMS, which provides better real-time engagement than email or other methods.
Reminders for Appointments
If your business relies on regular appointments, you understand the frustration of clients forgetting their appointments and arriving late. It's even more aggravating when clients don't show up at all.
This not only throws your schedule off, but it also wastes your time. Because that appointment slot was taken, you may have turned down other appointments. Sending text message reminders is an excellent technique to ensure that individuals don't forget their appointments and arrive on time.
What is a good choice for SMS Marketing Services?
Regardless of the type of business you have, text messaging can be a terrific addition to your digital marketing efforts. They have the unique ability to provide extremely important information in a highly dependable manner.
However, certain organizations are unable to function without SMS as part of their marketing strategy:
- Stores that sell things online: SMS is a terrific tool for e-commerce firms, whether they're delivering promotional campaigns or order/shipping confirmations.
- Companies that provide travel services: Customers demand real-time information, hence SMS is critical for travel companies. This includes updates on flight status, gate changes, cancellations, and weather alerts, among other things. You can inform customers exactly what they need to know using SMS online, without worrying about whether or not they will get it in time.
- Service firms that require appointments: Send SMS appointment reminders to your clients to ensure they never miss another appointment. This will save you a lot of time and money from missed appointments and no-shows.
- Large companies with more than 100 employees: Internal communication is critical, but communicating with every individual in a large firm is difficult. Email is too sluggish for urgent information. The easiest approach to ensure that every employee receives the information you want to deliver them at the proper time is to send SMS for internal communication.
Reasons to Use SMS as a Marketing Tool
Getting your product or service in front of your target audience is one of today's biggest marketing difficulties. Our inboxes are overloaded with information, and ads are so ubiquitous on our social media accounts that we scarcely see them. This is when SMS comes into play.
1. SMS marketing was created with mobile shopping in mind
According to a recent poll, 46% of Americans estimate they spend 5-6 hours per day using their mobile devices in their spare time.
Businesses must spend in mobile-friendly marketing as a result of this. SMS texts, on the other hand, make this simple because they're designed to be read on mobile screens.
2. Make contact with customers via their preferred means of communication
SMS messages also allows you to contact with customers in the method they choose. People want to feel important, and they want to know what's going on with their favourite brands.
Customers feel cared for and included when your company uses text messaging to keep them updated about deals, events, and other news that important to them.
E-Commerce Best Practices for SMS Marketing
Now that you've established an SMS marketing strategy, let's go through some key best practices to ensure your efforts are successful.
1. Provide value to your clients
Make sure you have something valuable to contribute when you reach out, such as: A one-of-a-kind or distinctive deal, especially if it's only available to your SMS subscribers.
A limited-time offer, such as BOGO (Buy One Get One Free) for the remainder of the day on products you need to get rid of. Customers who might want to participate in an event will need this information. New product or service introductions, particularly if you're offering your SMS list first access.
2. Keep it brief, succinct, and to-the-point.
Make your statement as brief as possible. People are reading these messages on small displays.
Instead of sending a succession of SMS, concentrate on a single Call To Action (CTA). Remember that many individuals still pay a premium for text messages, so sending three text messages to say the same thing will irritate them.
3. Make your SMS marketing initiatives more personalized.
Meanwhile, make sure you're speaking in your brand voice wherever feasible, and take the time to personalize your SMS messages.
You can accomplish it by making sectioned lists and texting groups about the topics that they are most interested in. When possible, use data automation to include people's names in their messages.
Strategy for SMS Marketing
You'll need a list of subscribers before you can send any text messaging campaigns. It's easier to do with E-Commerce than it is with other businesses since your customers want (and expect) to hear from you after they make a purchase.
You're ready to establish an SMS strategy that makes sense once you've created a means for your consumers to opt-in to receive text messages from you (either through checkout or a popup). Remember that combining SMS with additional channels like UGC (user generated content), push notifications, email marketing campaigns, and chatbots will make your SMS strategy even more effective. Your SMS Marketing Strategy should be part of a larger omnichannel marketing strategy for your company.
Online SMS can be used to automate consumer communication
You'll need a list of subscribers before you can send any group SMS campaigns.
It's easier to do with E-Commerce than it is with other businesses since your customers want (and expect) to hear from you after they make a purchase. Customers anticipate receiving:
- A confirmation of your order
- A shipment notice with a tracking information
- A notification of delivery
- A friendly reminder to write a review approximately 2-3 weeks after purchase
Customers enjoy receiving them on their mobile phones, such as notifications or text messages, which are standard touchpoints for any E-Commerce company.
As a result, upon checkout, you should ask for the customer's phone number and explain what you plan to do with it.
Initiate a SMS message giveaway
Running a giveaway is another wonderful approach to expand your group SMS list. You might promote it across your social media networks, inviting people to enter the giveaway by texting you or entering their phone number on your landing page.
Various businesses introduced an SMS giveaway that is a wonderful illustration of this. Since then, the busineses has had a lot of success with SMS marketing, and it is still one of their most effective marketing channels.
Cart Abandonment by SMS
SMS marketing is another excellent strategy to reduce cart abandonment. If you have a user's phone number on file when they abandon their basket, you can send them a customized text message with a discount or special offer.
Sending SMS Marketing Messages
Transactional and broadcast messages are the two types of messages you might send to begin communicating with your clients.
When a text message is sent in response to an activity, it is referred to as transactional SMS. Triggered text messages, can be set up in response to a client activity, such as signing up for communications, placing an online order, or attending an event.
Broadcast SMS messages are scalable marketing messages that, while not directly prompted by a previous activity, should nonetheless be extremely relevant to customers. You may assure their relevance by directing subscribers to a preference centre when they opt in and tailoring your material based on demographic information, such as age or locality.
Here are a few examples of transactional and broadcast messages, respectively.
1. Include a SMS along with your welcome emails
Automated welcome email campaigns can provide a number of advantages, including improved customer experience and higher engagement rates. Adding SMS to the mix can help you succeed even more. Remember to emphasize any benefits of joining up, just like you would in an email.
2. After a sale, send quick order confirmations and updates
Texting order updates is a good way to solidify your SMS online strategy. Consumers who are well-informed are satisfied customers. Updates on the status of customers' orders, including shipment and delivery timelines, are part of a great customer experience.
3. Date-triggered SMS marketing messages can be automated
From appointment reminders to birthdays and abandoned cart text messages, connect with clients when it matters most.
Additionally, by meeting clients on their mobile devices, you can increase holiday sales. A Christmas must-have is a simple, clean email paired with timely, tailored SMS messages.
You can automatically draw in names and personal details to add an extra degree of personalization to your texts with the correct bulk sms gateway.
4. Send out fresh arrival announcements to encourage customers to buy
Send SMS marketing messages to inform your customers about your newest product releases. This is an excellent illustration of why an SMS message is preferable to an email, especially if the product is in high demand. New product updates are also a terrific method to entice people to visit your store in person, in addition to increasing online traffic.
5. With content-driven messaging, you can keep the dialogue going
Enhance the customer experience by delivering value-driven engagements to the consumer's smartphone. Inquire about their experience with the product they purchased, or show them a video of unique ways they may utilize it.
Because a SMS message is quick, direct, and unambiguous, it's a terrific way to send succinct, to-the-point content.
Final Thoughts
It's simple to get started with SMS marketing. Determine what you want to say and why you want to say it, then ask individuals if you may send them messages and sign up for an bulk sms service.
After that, start sending texts online to your customers. Keep them short and to the point, and don't overstay your welcome by calling individuals every day.
The more you use SMS messaging and analyze your results to figure out what to do next, the more effective it becomes.
Category
Author
SMS.CX
Allows companies to connect to their customers via mobile phones. Companies can send thousands of text messages in seconds, trough the powerful Web Platform or the reliable SMS API.
