Your Ultimate Guide To Creating SMS Marketing Campaigns

Published on: 08 December 2022 Last Updated on: 12 September 2024
SMS Marketing

Every marketer would tell you that there are reasons why text marketing continues to become a mainstay in marketing agencies.

In fact, both conventional and modern companies highly rely on their efficacy when it comes to reaching out to their target audience. Because when you think about it, every person checks their text message inbox every time they receive a ping. 

Leveraging communication strategies like an effective SMS marketing campaign allows you to grow your brand more, target more audiences, and even build closer relationships with prospects.

There are a lot of things that SMS marketing can help you with in terms of achieving business goals. But before you partake in this marketing tactic, it’s important to understand the concept behind this marketing practice. Use this guide to make successful SMS marketing campaigns. 

What Is SMS Marketing? 

It’s crucial to understand first the concept behind this old but gold marketing strategy. SMS marketing refers to a short message service you send to your customers to build relationships with them. It’s important for text marketers to communicate with their target audiences in a respectful and compliant manner.

No matter what your business goals are, SMS marketing puts you one step ahead of achieving them. For instance, you can drive more leads, introduce new products, lead them to check your website, and so on. The ideas that you can do with this marketing method are limitless. 

Compared to email or push notification marketing, SMS marketing has several advantages. For instance, every person who receives an incoming message in their phone inbox will surely take the time to check and read them one by one.

While some people might check their emails at least once a day regarding text message inboxes, people often check them as soon as they receive a message. 

Your message can be concise and clear with SMS marketing. There’s no need for lengthy advertising messages. With brief sentences that can take up less than 160 characters of the SMS limit, you can already deliver what you want to say to your prospects.

Choosing The Right SMS Marketing Tool 

Now, it’s time to understand the tool to use for this marketing strategy. With the advent of technology, there is now text marketing software at your disposal. For one, you can take advantage of Drop Cowboy Ringless Voicemail service and some other brands that offer reliable text messaging as marketing services.  

Text message delivery depends on the tools and services you choose. Such software comes with pricing plans that fit your marketing budget and goals. Unlike any other conventional marketing promotions like print ads, TV ads, and billboards, this marketing campaign is priced reasonably better. Also, consider partnering with the best SMS marketing service provider to automate your text messages to your target recipients.   

How To Maximize On SMS Marketing Campaigns

Maximize On SMS Marketing Campaigns

As mentioned, a high percentage of people open text messages every time they receive one. By sending promotional messages via SMS, you ensure your customers will read them because they will arrive directly in their inboxes.

Check out these ideas in which you can maximize your SMS marketing campaigns. 

1. Limited-Time Promotions 

You can use an SMS marketing strategy to encourage your customers to avail of coupons and discounts or even redeem incentives or gifts. Offering these incentives for a limited time makes them even more effective.

Announcing that the campaign only runs on a promo period is an effective call-to-action strategy so your customers won’t miss out on such opportunities. It’s one effective strategy to get your business to high ranks

Considering SMS marketing’s high open rate, it’s the most effective way to communicate time-sensitive offers with customers. As a result, you ensure your customers don’t pass up a good deal. This yield win-win situations for both the customers and your brand. They get discounted rates, and you could convert your sales funnel more effectively.  

2. Reminding Customers 

One good purpose for SMS marketing is when you could send notifications regarding the recent actions of your customers.

For instance, whether they checked your website, changed passwords, or linked different payment modes, an SMS notification will be sent to inform them that the activity is successful. Sending notification messages is essential for many businesses, and they’ve realized how effective it is in retaining customers.  

By relaying notifications about their recent purchase or online activities, the customers will grow their trust in your brand. It could lead to continuous patronage. Also, they will feel at ease by getting reminders of how your brand is already dealing with their orders or purchases. Receiving reminders is valuable, especially for customers who are always busy with other things and obligations.  

Make sure your brand is always at the top of your customer’s minds. It’s a job that SMS is best suited for. With SMS marketing, you can remind your customers about everything from their most recently liked products to the purchased ones that are going to arrive soon. 

3. Order Updates And Confirmation 

An SMS is also useful for customers to receive updates regarding their orders. Once they make a purchase, a message will be sent regarding the successful transaction. It ensures peace of mind for the customer. 

Also, the confirmation messages sent via SMS will allow them to use them as proof or evidence regarding their purchase. If products don’t arrive as planned, they can refer to the SMS notification.  

4. New Product Release And Launches 

SMS advertising is also useful for announcing new product releases. It’s the most cost-effective way for marketers to advertise new product launching. Without paying for the expensive talents of celebrities to promote new products, a large number of users will discover your new product offering through the message they can read in their SMS inbox. 

Using this method will generate buzz and interest, and you could even entice old customers to come back and check out what’s new. You can also use SMS campaigns to drive traffic to your website or storefront. Thus, you can simply include a link they can visit to check your new product or any offers. 

5. Send Welcome Messages 

Send your customer a welcome message once they subscribe to your SMS marketing campaign. Companies must start building relationships with their customers. As a result, you will be able to communicate with them right away, as they will know they have been subscribed.  

It also alerts them to expect a few messages from your end every now and then. There’s no need for lengthy or complex welcome messages. Sometimes short but sweet thank you message about their subscription are already enough for your customers to remember your business.  

6. Customer Service Tool 

SMS is not limited to being a marketing tool; it’s also a customer support tool. In this era where customer service should be at the forefront of any business, SMS strategy can be used to ensure customer satisfaction. 

It’s imperative that your work processes are as transparent as possible, and you can achieve this by constantly sending them SMS in case necessary. After all, a text message is the easiest way to communicate with pre-sale customers and post-sale tech support.

7. Collect Customer Feedback 

It’s essential for businesses to receive customer feedback to determine what they are doing well and what they need to improve. And it’s something that’s being offered with SMS marketing. You can send out surveys through SMS, and customers can answer them timely and convenient.  

There are many ways to create survey forms for them to easily fill out. The key is to attach the link to your SMS. Another option is to ask customers to rate you using a ranking system that’s easy for them to use.  

8. Announce VIP Programs 

By offering a VIP program, you can encourage loyalty among your subscribers and customers. If you want to make your VIP customers feel special, offer them VIP-only discounts. This sense of exclusivity allows your customers to treat your brand with more respect and value.  

Also, use this program for customers to gain early access to sales and other promotions. One way for them to qualify for your VIP list is to encourage them to fill out a signup link. However, since it’s VIP, make it seems more challenging for them to enter this list. The harder it feels to qualify, the more special and valued they would feel. 

Tips To Apply Effective SMS Marketing Strategies

SMS Marketing Strategies

Applying SMS marketing strategies require effective implementations. When done right, they can produce the best outcomes for your business. Here are some tips to apply effective SMS marketing strategies for your brand: 

1. Ensure That Your Customers Opted In 

Your customers probably already provide you with their phone numbers. However, one common courtesy is to get their approval to start receiving SMS from your brand. Mass texting them without their consent is ethically wrong and will only lead to adverse effects on the customer. Ensure to get your customer’s clear opt-in before starting to send out text message campaigns. 

Your website or other online channels can allow customers to opt-in to receive text messages. However, you should get a text confirmation before you send them anything. There are ways to get their opt-in consent. One is to make them reply Yes or No to your single SMS regarding SMS subscription. Another way is through your website.

They can press a CTA button regarding their receiving SMS messages from your brand. When the user clicks the link in the offer, they can fill out the subscription form and enter their number so they can start receiving your SMS campaigns. 

2. Take Time To Introduce Yourself 

A good practice is to take the time to introduce your brand in any of your SMS campaigns. Chances are your customers don’t know where the messages are coming from. Failing to include your company name or brand name on the message will only forfeit its purpose. Hence, it’s important to include your company or brand name in that short message that you’re sending. 

3. Make Messages Fun And Short 

It’s common for people to use SMS messages to communicate with friends and family informally. Texting should remain fun in your SMS campaign in the same way as a fun communication tool between people. Be friendly and personal with customers to build trust.  

Use local trending words that are popular with your target audience for the time being. It ensures to catch their interest and make them read your text message completely. The maximum number of characters in an SMS message is 160. With an opt-out option and the need to identify yourself, that’s not much to work with. Don’t waste any characters, and go straight to the point of what you want to say.  

4. Don’t Forget To Use Target Keywords 

To encourage users to connect with you, you should select contextually relevant keywords alongside simple messages and shortcodes. Using such keywords will allow them to easily remember anything about your brand or company. If they want to research you online, they can use the same keywords found on your SMS.

5. Give An Option For Customers To Opt Out 

All marketing communications should follow these standards and rules. Much like getting their buy-in, you should also give them the option to opt out and unsubscribe from your SMS campaigns. You are more likely to lose customers if you constantly text them when they do not want to hear from you. 

Your messages should come with the unsubscribe option, so your customers can freely opt out anytime they want. There are some viable reasons for them to do this. But it doesn’t entirely mean that they won’t be good prospects for you in the future. It’s just that not everyone prefers to get this kind of information via text. 

SMS open rates tend to be much higher than those for email, so you should also expect a higher unsubscribe rate. After a message is sent, unsubscribes may spike and treat it as a normal occurrence.  

6. Be More Informative Than Promotional 

You should be extremely considerate of your buyers’ inboxes since promotional SMS messages can easily be turned off. Therefore, staying informative and interactive is best, and not focusing too much on sounding sales or promotional.  

A good rule of thumb is to focus most of your communication on order, whether a status update or a request for feedback. Schedule your promotional messages and send them at least only twice a week at a minimum. No one wants to keep receiving promotional messages that are obvious that they want to make money from you.

Conclusion

You can increase engagement with your target audience by using SMS marketing. Keeping your customers’ attention is easier if you market to them where they are most active.

Therefore, if your target audience is always in their phone’s SMS inbox, it’s worth considering SMS marketing as part of your marketing mix. Use this guide and wait for results to reflect your bottom line soon. 

Read Also:

Arnab is a professional blogger, having an enormous interest in writing blogs and other jones of calligraphies. In terms of his professional commitments, He carries out sharing sentient blogs.

View all posts

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Related

Drip Marketing Campaign

Why every Business Holder should Start Using the Drip Marketing?

Business is all about being customer oriented and coming up with new engaging plans to build rapport with customers. Making timely emails, reminding customers to finish their task, providing proper confirmation, catering them with right targeted content and many more. All these things are possible when using automation tools offered by Snovio. I came to know about it recently, so mark my words as this new technology is tried and tested by me for my own business. The reasons I love to do business with this platform are not so numerous but they are valuable. How you will benefit from using Snovio Snovio Email Drip Campaigns is a tool that might be used for many purposes. Here are some points you might benefit from. ●Warm the leads up: There is no harm in little persuasion if the customer is interested. So to make them interested in your services or good, they need to have prior knowledge about the company or the type of service you provide, so that they will be interested in you. In order to make this happen, you need to activate the customers by providing with the right content. This process is called “warming up” in this field. It might be of any form like a blog post, or a piece of information on how to use the platform or service, or an email asking for their expectations and possible questions. ●Locking the customer: Once the customer is enough interested in the service, you need to lock the customer with you, by providing them more information about the topic they are interested in. This kind of actions will make sure that you will have that customer for a long period. Sending them messages regularly will show your determinism towards the customers and things like these will help you win the heart of the customer. Snovio tool provides users with the right tools which are required for any business to reach marketing and sales success. ●Converting lead: Once you make the customer comfortable in reading and understanding the service or content, it is the time to move towards making the sale which will be beneficial for an interested customer or a business owner. Drip Campaigns features: The tool is completely free but provides users with paid plans as well. All the features are unlocked within the free plan and you can use the tool to the fullest. Let me provide you with a list of features that will help you skyrocket the business: email campaign templates to save time and not to create a new email campaign every time you need one; email templates to send pre-written plain-text messages; personalization variables to add a human touch to every email and build relationships with the leads; triggers and delays to spread the emails regularly, not like a spammer; goals and statistics to see how well the campaign and every message in particular perform. Enjoy it to the full: All the benefits and features mentioned above are really working and you can try the platform today. You can sign up right now and enjoy all the features for free. With drip emails campaign, you can reach out to target people, warm them up, and later convert, thus increase sales. Isn’t that the goal you are aiming to? Read Also: 7 Ways Technology Can Help In Customer Management And Sales 10 Top-Notch Tools To Improve Your Business Writing Skills A Guide To Running Your Instagram Marketing Campaign 5 Types Of Digital Marketing

READ MOREDetails
Business Marketing

How to Deal With Debt By Doing Business Marketing Smartly?

Small businesses and startups often find it much easier to borrow the lion’s share of their capital. Finding an investor is never completely off the table, but it is not an easy task to do. It is much easier to find lending organizations, who are ready to test out the abilities of the new entrepreneurs to multiply their monies. Very soon, a time arises when the creditors expect at least a part of their invested money back. Now, this is a time most entrepreneurs know will come, but none are ready to face. It is almost always "too early" or "too sudden." Online marking, when you are already in massive debt? Gaining momentum for a new business not only takes time and effort, but it also takes some serious marketing skills. By marketing, we do not mean TVCs, hoardings, and pamphlets. Those are ancient forms of advertising that no one even notices anymore. If you are in such a situation, what you need is a stable dose of online marketing that will make you visible to your target audience. Here comes the biggest conundrum in the world. When a business is already nose-deep in debt, can it afford to plunge further in by going in for online marketing? That entirely depends on your perspective of online marketing. Your contenders and contemporaries may think online marketing to be an added expense, but you know what almost 71% of the US population is already online and looking for businesses like you. So, would you deem online marketing as an added expense or a smart investment? You need a website first : The first step of online marketing is getting your own presence established online. It means an excellent site. By nice, we mean something that's functional, professional, SEO optimized, and capable of attracting and converting traffic. It should represent your selling theme, services, and products perfectly. Building a website is no easy feat. You may have the enthusiasm to build a website from scratch, but not all entrepreneurs can have the coding skills and analytical skills needed to construct a working business website. Building a website from scratch can take up a lot of time, and it takes a lot of algorithms to perfect the buying and payment process. Either you can opt for DIY website builders like WordPress or Joomla, or you can surely approach a professional website builder. A professional website builder will again cost you a few bucks. If you are thinking of building a PHP based website from scratch, it will also take considerable amounts of time. Now, this is not going to be cheap for your business. Therefore, it is not uncommon for entrepreneurs to wonder if going for online marketing is the best way to a debt solution. The inspiration you need : So, let us tell you a real-life success story. Initially a nobody, Rank Fishkin started out with his own tech startup and went plummeting into a $500,000 personal debt. From there he is now the owner of the world’s largest SEO, social media, and content marketing website Moz that is netting about $40 million in revenue for the last seven years. That is a success story better than any fairy tale you will ever hear. Was it easy? Did it involve magic spells? No! It required endless hours of smart digital marketing strategies and intelligent investment moves. The moral of the story is: just because you are nose deep in debt, does not mean you can invest in something new. Digital marketing and social media marketing are the new ways to reintroduce your brand to a new world of potential buyers. People are waiting out there right now to hear from you about your products and services. How to find them? Finding the right people at the right time is the only “magic” you need to perform. You will need a few social media listening tools like HootSuite, Buffer, and Social Sprout. These offer a few free services. Their premium services cost less than a Grande. Of course, you will need to work on your social media account before you start listening to what people are saying about your brand online! So get started. Create a professional Facebook page, Twitter account, and at least an Instagram page. You need to post daily. Sometimes twice a day. Engage in regular conversations with your customers. Stay visible and exciting. If you ever run out of original content, do not shy away from asking your followers for some. Do it tactfully. Introduce new photo contests, quizzes, and polls with attractive rewards. That is the way to create user-generated content. It is the most efficient way to keep your page and wall filled with meaningful content every minute of staying online. Investing is not the problem, not spending in the right places is : Online marketing is an investment in every way possible. It is like putting a bait to catch the bigger fish. Using the right keywords in your product descriptions, doctoring your URL to suit the liking of the bots, and including image tags to become visible during Google image searches are all parts of that investment. Still, you may want to consult your personal financial advisor before you take the plunge. You need to be in touch with your financial reality before you can make new investments. Your financial advisor or your debt counselor should help you in understanding the debt program's details. Your current debt program may have reservations about making new investments or certain kinds of investments unless you pay off a certain fraction of the amount you have borrowed. Most businesses end up in a fiscal dead-end due to ignorance and bad decision-making, rather than investing in new marketing. We have seen companies drown because they were not adventurous enough and they have always played safe. In 2017, online marketing is not a luxury or an option. It is a compulsion you need to embrace before your competitors take away all your potential clients. Making yourself more visible on the internet will get you more sales and profit. It will help you make more money and pay off your debts faster than usual. Read Also : 5 Marketing Tips To Help Grow Your Business On Instagram Discovering A New Promotion Position For Your expanding Search Engine Marketing Business Top 8 Benefits Of Professional Business Cards

READ MOREDetails
Online Promotion Methods

7 Online Promotion Methods For Your Next Live Performance

If you have a live performance coming up, you probably have tons of tasks on your to-do list. Even if you have managers or vendors lining things up, you need to be there throughout the process. One aspect you should definitely focus on is marketing. That will really help you get as many attendees as you want. While promotion takes place across multiple mediums, the internet is where you’ll really get the results. Online marketing has numerous elements, so you have a lot of opportunities to promote your upcoming performance. However, before you start the promotion process, make sure you have a decent website, a functioning ticketing system, and your social media pages up and running. Then, you can start off with the following online marketing ideas. Create Live Music Posters For Social Media Adding a multimedia element to your online promotion strategy is quite useful. So, you should make a live music poster, with audio, visuals, and text regarding your next performance. You can do this on PosterMyWall by choosing one of the many templates there, and then customizing it accordingly. If you have a musical act, add snippets from it to this poster. In addition, make sure you keep a similar aesthetic and color scheme running throughout your online marketing collateral. When you have this poster, share it on your website, and across all your social media platforms to announce your performance. Share A Schedule & Teasers Periodically release information about your performance on your online platforms. You can start with a teaser announcement, then announce the date/time/venue, and then you can create a schedule and post that. This will help you generate hype in your audience, and pique their interest. However, do share the important details before anything, otherwise, they will get frustrated at the lack of information. Utilize Video Marketing Videos are the top-trending medium for online marketing these days. Short-form video platforms like TikTok have changed the game with video marketing, so you need to get your information across in a short time, and in a visually appealing manner. So, share live rehearsal snippets, behind-the-scenes videos, and communicate face-to-face with your audience with these short clips. Make sure these are filmed and edited well, and then share them on your social media pages, with a special focus on Reels and TikTok. Build Up Hype Across Platforms Often, companies tend to focus on only one or two online platforms. However, you need to make sure you cover all your bases. Whether it is social media, email, blogs, online forums, or your own website, have a cohesive promotion plan for all these online platforms. Customize your posts according to the dimensions and specifications of these platforms, and then you can implement your campaigns. Of course, you’ll put a bit more effort and resources into platforms that have proven to be successful for you, but you should also not ignore all the other online promotion opportunities out there. Work With Businesses For Cross-Promotion If you have a sponsor, then you can ask them to share your online promotion materials on their platforms as well. Usually, they’ll want to be mentioned on your platforms in return, so fulfill your end of the deal with a few special sponsor announcement posts and logo placements as well. You can also contact local businesses near your venue for services like food, transport, and others. Then, offer to promote these services on your platforms for your audiences to use. In return, these businesses can promote your event on their online platforms. You can even work out agreements with promo codes and discounts for patrons of both your performance and the businesses. Utilize Influencer Marketing These days, influencer marketing is a major tool for online promotion. Do your research into popular influencers in the area and contact them for shoutouts for your performance. Send out a few free tickets or comped services to the bigger names, so that they announce that they’ll be attending your performance to their followers. You need to make sure you contact these influencers well in advance and figure out exactly what you want from them, and get it in writing. A proper agreement means that there will be no confusion or misunderstanding later. Make Custom Band Email Newsletters Email marketing is still one of the best online promotion tools you can work on. So, you should send out monthly updates in an email newsletter to your mailing list of fans and potential attendees. Use the band email templates on PosterMyWall to make these emails, and use the platform’s email marketing tool to keep track of everything in one place. This will help you develop an email list for future performances as well. So, make these newsletters to keep people updated, and to hype up your performances. To sum up, there are countless ways to promote your live performance online. Utilize a mixture of mediums and methods to optimize your results and get the audience of your dreams. Read Also: How To Market Your App Successfully Mobile App Marketing Agency Marketing – What’s Right For Your Business?

READ MOREDetails