SMS marketing can be an incredibly powerful tool for growing your business if used right. Get it wrong, and it can be spammy and annoying for your customers and potential customers. In this guide, we look at the do’s and don’ts of SMS marketing, allowing you to get your next campaign right.
How to Use SMS Marketing to Grow Your Sales?
The amount of time people spend on their cell phones continues to go up. While some other forms of marketing are easily ignored and forgotten about, an SMS message can be a way to provide your customers with an alert on their phone that they are likely to see.
If you have a way of collecting mobile numbers, SMS can be one way to reach people, as part of a wider marketing campaign. Here are some of the ways you can use SMS marketing to grow sales:
- Send customers an exclusive special offer so that they are likely to take action, especially if it is time-limited.
- Let customers know about in-person or in-store events.
- Take advantage of trends and special events (for instance, a 4th of July sale).
- Upsell, or remind customers of other services you are able to offer them.
- Send something free to a customer. For example, a coffee place could let their customers have a free coffee, in the hope that they stick around and buy more, or just come to this store again.
How to Use SMS Marketing without Being Spammy
We’ve all had emails or SMS messages that we think feel a bit spammy and annoying. This can lead customers to opt-out of your SMS service and give your business the wrong sort of reputation. So how do you avoid becoming spammy and unwanted?
First, don’t use your SMS list to contact people too often. Getting a message every day is just going to annoy people or people can think it’s a scam (according to cybersecurity statistics: 40% of identity theft victims are contacted by phone). Relentless, pushy tactics don’t tend to work anywhere near as well with most businesses.
Be useful. If you can find a way to tie in useful information, a discount or something that your customers will find handy, they are way more likely to appreciate your message even if they don’t end up using your offer or taking up your promotion. It’s about the long game; you can convert customers after providing them with value.
Try to be personal, too. If you have data on the person you are messaging, or you are able to use reverse lookup tools to find more information then you can narrow down messages by area, address people by name and more.
The 3 Best Tools to Use for SMS Marketing
SMS marketing is growing and the industry is primed to meet demand as more and more businesses start to make SMS part of their marketing. Here are three tools that will help you leverage SMS marketing.
1. Reverse Lookup Tools for Personalization
These tools allow you to find more details about the people who have left their number. Use reverse lookup tools to get more data and target your marketing campaign properly rather than just a scattergun approach.
2. CRM (Customer Relationship Management)
CRMs can allow you to track your customers and all of your contact with them. This means you will be able to build a picture of which campaigns work for your customer base, when the last campaign was sent, opt-ins, opt-outs and much more. CRMS are a form of software and can sometimes work as apps within your computer or mobile device. This is the central hub to store all of your customer data and track your relationships and success.
3. “Live Agent” Chat Tools
In certain industries, it might be suitable to have the option for a customer to respond to your SMS rather than just take on the information. It will show that you are happy to engage your customers if you utilize a live agent tool to jump in and speak to your customer if they respond to an SMS message — even more personalized.
Additionally, consider using an advanced SMS testing tool that ensures your marketing messages are delivered successfully and look perfect on any device. This tool can be pivotal in refining your strategy to achieve higher engagement rates.
Top Benefits of SMS Marketing
What are the benefits to your brand using SMS marketing?
- It’s relatively inexpensive to carry out.
- You can provide personalized campaigns.
- You can reach customers quickly for flash sales and promotions.
- The messages are more likely to be seen than emails or social media.
- You can tie SMS marketing with other forms of marketing for even more effectiveness.
- You can use SMS to communicate in a direct way that isn’t possible with some other formats. You can send mass text messages to cover your global audience.
Each brand has slightly different experiences, but there are many ways in which SMS marketing can form an integral part of your marketing.
As with other types of marketing, success will boil down to whether or not you use your SMS marketing correctly. If you are able to target your audience properly, with personalized ads and a useful offer, the chances are that SMS marketing will be successful for your business and allow you a new, instant channel to connect with your existing and potential customers. Avoid a spammy feel, and instead, make your customers feel like you are providing value when their alerts show a new message from your business.