5 Tips for a Better SMS Marketing Strategy
It is important for businesses to continuously connect with their consumers. By providing a quality consumer experience, it builds customer loyalty which in turn encourages them to spend more as well as help promote your business through their word of mouth.
SMS Marketing (also known as text message marketing) can be a highly effective strategy to create this emotional connection between a customer and a business. However, just blasting out SMS to every mobile device won’t guarantee success. If your message does not captivate your customers and motivate them to act on it, your efforts will go to waste.
So here are 5 tips for a better SMS marketing strategy:
1. Introduce Yourself
When a random number appears on a consumer’s screen, the first thing that comes to mind is “Who are you?” This is why it is important that you clearly identify your brand or business at the beginning of the text message (e.g. “SMSS360 Get extra credits …”). An anonymous sender might give the recipients an impression that is a spam message.
2. Phrase it Right
The first sentence should start with something that is attention-grabbing. For instance, starting with “Buy this…” might cause some customers to lose interest. People like to know what it is in it for them first before they are willing to spend the money on it. So it is always good to remember to start with the value your product/service can provide to the customer and not with what you want the customer to do for you (this should be at the end of the text message).
3. Create a Sense of Urgency
Sending out a personalized, great value and well-phrased text message will not guarantee your customer will actually follow through. So maximize your chances by describing the benefits of acting now. For example, if you are offering a discount code, make sure there’s a time limit to get them to act on it ‘20% off on all products, valid until the end of August’
4. Consistency is key (but Don’t send it too often)
Create a specific promotion schedule and stick with it. This is so you will avoid overwhelming your audiences with text messages and to not neglect them either.
5. Be Relevant
When a customer receives an SMS that is irrelevant to their interest, they would instantly delete it and then complain about it. This might give your business or brand a bad image.
So before you hit that send button, ask yourself these questions: Who are they?, "What are their preferences and motivations?" "What can my product/service do for them?" "Does it solve any of their problems?" etc. Dig deep into their personality/behaviour and your product/service value. Feel free to roleplay it out in your head to see whether they would appreciate your message.
Endnote
Once your SMS Marketing campaign is in place, remember to track its success to see if any further tweaking is needed. Like every other campaign, it is a process that needs to be analysed and updated on a continual basis.
