Online businesses targeting the digital landscape to reach customers should be adding SMS marketing to your arsenal. It’s the most powerful way of reaching customers. All the household brands are doing it.
When the Director of Mobile for Coca-Cola, Tom Daily was asked why the company invested 70% of their mobile advertising budget into SMS marketing he said: “we know that SMS works and is a thing to focus on.”
Texting has many benefits for small businesses as well. It’s not a channel that is reserved for the top brands. In actual fact, text message marketing could be more beneficial to small local businesses that the corps.
Now search engines are gearing their attention towards mobile users, it is even more critical to align your online business with a mobile world. To get your creative juices flowing, here are five ways you can us SMS messaging services to support your marketing campaigns.
SMS marketing is arguable THE most powerful tool in a marketer’s kit box for generating leads. Because bulk SMS services are cost-effective you can spread the word far and wide. But not only that, text messages are typically read by over 90% of recipients.
Furthermore, it is easy to manage SMS marketing campaigns and measure how effective they are. You see, SMS marketing works on two basic components:
When you send an SMS marketing message, you will include a keyword in the body of the text. The keyword should relate to your offer or whatever message you want to promote. For example: LIVE JAZZ EVENT
The shortcode is the number recipients use to send the message back to you. A shortcode looks something like this: 33358
Therefore, a simple SMS message would look something like this:
LIVE JAZZ EVENT: TXT 3358 for details.
You can use the keyword-shortcode combination to track and measure individual marketing campaigns and assess which messages or target groups are getting the best response.
When a recipient answers, they are effectively “opting in” to your campaign which gives you the licence to engage in further communication with them.
How you proceed with the lead may depend on the next step of the purchasing path and whether you already have additional contact details of the customer. Essentially your goal is to send them relevant links that provides more details about your promotion and get them to sign up.
Because of the high percentage of open rates mentioned earlier, SMS marketing is an effective way of raising awareness. It is therefore a useful component of your marketing strategy.
There are obvious benefits for event organizers and charity fundraisers in particularly, but other small businesses can take advantage of SMS marketing power as well.
Smartphones are multi-media enabled. You can therefore send links to promotional videos, or enticing images that showcase your product.
Driving sales is at the top of every marketers list and text messaging services put you in the helm. And the power of mobile technologies gives marketers several great opportunities to entice buyers.
It should be noted that an attractive promotion is advantageous when using SMS messaging. Because of the limited space, there is no room for beguiling customers with sales copy.
But attractive offers will always pique the interest of buyers. SMS is the best channel to send discount coupons, and if you have the in-store technology for customers to swipe the barcode, the added convenience of a fast and smooth purchase warms customers to your brand.
Retailers and other small businesses such as restaurants are also reaping the benefits of location-based marketing which works hand-in-hand with text messaging services.
When customers are in the vicinity of your bricks-and-mortar establishment, you can ping of an SMS telling the recipient about your great offer.
Small businesses rely on returning customers to survive. And because SMS is such a personal and easily accessible form of communication, you can use text messaging services to your advantage by building customer loyalty.
Customers that are particularly active with your business should be treated to special ‘just for you’ offers. And a charming text message offering the deal will make their day.
Depending on the number of core customers you want to reward, it is in your best interests to make the messages personal. Use their name, rather than a generic sir or madam, or nothing at all. Nurturing customer loyalty should have the personal touch.
Alternatively, if the offer you would like to propose is too long for a text, you can send a follow up SMS message informing the recipient about your special offer. This makes customers feel special.
When you are promoting a new product or an event, you need to let as many people know about it as possible. As we mentioned earlier, bulk SMS messaging services are a great way to raise awareness, and they are a great of creating a buzz as well.
Not every message you send on SMS has to be an offer. Text messages can also be used to give out information and ready your customers for the big launch.
You can still be active with informational text messages by including a url where customers can access additional information. But because so many people are more willing to open and read a text message over other channels of communication, they are the best medium for creating a buzz about your products, events or promotions.
If you haven’t already looked into using SMS messaging services to support your current marketing strategies, now is a good time to investigate.
With billions of consumers carrying a smartphone, SMS marketing is an effective and easy way of promoting your goods and services. If you really want your marketing messages to hit home, bulk SMS services are the best way to pitch your marketing message.
