Explore how marketers can boost their business through SMS marketing.Â
How SMS, in tandem with email, meetings, phone calls and other marketing channels, allows marketers to quickly connect every part of your business from prospects to customers and employees and why it’s still one of the most potent tools for marketers, writes Doug Rubingh, President, U.S. and U.K. at MessageMedia.
When it comes to creating memorable experiences, the little things can make a big difference. Businesses that go the extra mile to anticipate and deliver on customer needs attract a loyal clientele, develop an invaluable trade in word-of-mouth recommendations and strengthen existing customer relationships. So for the coming year, please don’t underestimate the power of the humble text message: it’s one of your most potent channels to connect with customers; ubiquitous, familiar, instant, personal and unobtrusive, all at the same time. Today, 89% of consumers want two-way conversations via messaging channels and apps. They want rich experiences that give them the power to take action.
So when someone has entrusted you with their phone number, it’s best to make it worth their while. And It’s the perfect time for brands to assess their SMS marketing strategy and align it with their targeted goals. Here are five essential practices to ensure your SMS campaigns create a lasting impact on your customers.
Nurturing your existing relationships works in two ways. By rewarding their loyalty, your customers will likely shop more often with you. They’ll be more likely to tell their friends about your business. It’s a win-win.
A loyalty program is a great way to share the love with your regular customers. An easy way to get started is by using a text-based loyalty program to ensure your loyalty card doesn’t get lost at the back of your wallet. Plus, it starts a two-way conversation that can significantly impact business customer service.
Take it a step further by allowing your customers to tell you what they think through a feedback survey. Simply sending an SMS to a customer and asking them to rate their purchase or experience allows them to share their opinion while allowing your business to assess feedback and implement changes to enhance the customer experience.
The personal touches are often the most memorable parts of an excellent customer experience. Setting out to achieve this for your own business is easier than it sounds. For example, you can delight retail customers by creating unique landing pages — using a template to customize them with relevant customer data — and linking to them in SMS messages. Your customers get to open a website seemingly made just for them, setting your brand apart from the crowd.
While SMS is powerful on its own, using MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) can also help enrich communication by incorporating product or service visuals, invoking an emotional connection with customers and mimicking the intimacy of an in-person customer service interaction.
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Using SMS for your business doesn’t mean that your team will be manually typing each message and keeping up each text conversation with all of your customers — that’s not scalable. Using text message templates, you can easily stay on-brand and tonally consistent and prevent your employees’ carpal tunnel syndrome. These templates simplify the SMS drafting process and remove the guesswork of writing recurring messages. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel – keep it short, sweet and personal.
Automation is another way to reduce the strain on your team. Keyword triggers, auto-replies, scheduled text reminders, opt-in campaigns and out-of-office auto-replies are all ways automated text messages can help you run SMS campaigns nearly hands-off while still delivering a smooth customer experience.
If you already use other tools like Salesforce, Shopify or Hubspot, consider integrating text messaging into the platforms. With SMS campaigns seamlessly linked to your preferred CRM or CMS, you can add another layer to your marketing toolkit and streamline the process.
SMS can’t help your business grow if your messages aren’t being read. Tackling your database is a key step to managing your contacts and ensuring your messages reach the right people. To keep your database tidy and up-to-date, ensure you’re routinely deleting duplicate contacts, culling dead numbers, and using delivery reports or home location register (HLR) lookups.
Once you’re prepared to send a message out, this simple formula is key to avoid embarrassing typos and misguided autocorrects: Check, test, modify and repeat. Once you’ve started a campaign, check response rates; if they are low or slow, find ways to rework your copy. Ending a message with a call to action (CTA) can help prompt an action or reply, so make sure your ask is clear.
When you send a text message, expect it to be read within ninety seconds. Being read, though, is one thing; prompting action or eliciting trust is another. Consider when and how often you send SMS to influence engagement.
Optimize timeliness by adding urgency to promotional messages, sending them only during socially acceptable hours, and always checking local times if your contacts live in different time zones. Remember quality is more important than quantity — don’t overdo it and risk turning off your customers by sending messages too often.
Finally, it is important to follow SMS Compliance best practices as set forth by the Federal
Communications Commission, the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association and the Mobile Marketing Association. By displaying clear calls-to-action, providing applicable consent mechanisms, sending opt-in confirmation messages and acknowledging and honoring opt-out requests, you can ensure that you’re following the four Guiding Principles from the CTIA and operating in the best interest of your customers.
Any interaction between your business and a customer is a chance to differentiate your brand. As the business landscape grows more competitive daily, this may be critical to sustained longevity and growth. Utilizing these SMS strategies through personalization, consideration and engagement can help you reach key customers and work towards your business goals in 2023 and beyond.
How do you think SMS marketing can help you boost your business? Share with us on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. We’d love to hear from you!
Image Source: Shutterstock
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President, MessageMedia
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