SMS marketing campaigns are a favourite among marketers as they can reach an unrivalled number of customers with the click of a button. From promotions to appointment reminders, all are successfully delivered at the doorstep of their customers and a call to action can be sent from anywhere. Unlike email marketing which is often ignored or not read for days, SMS messages are often opened immediately.
Most people will look at their phones right away when they wake up and use them constantly throughout their day which means they are always available to receive your marketing messages.
1) Use branded URLs in your text marketing campaign
Using your brand URL is very important in your text marketing campaign as it looks professional.
For instance, we use msnt.ee for Messente.com. This ensures that operator filtering tools don’t mistake your text message for spam when using bit.ly links for example.
It also adds a bit of a personal touch to your text message marketing in terms of your brand, as the links they click are associated with your products, services and your name rather than bit.ly. An added bonus is that branded links are clicked more frequently, making your SMS marketing campaigns feel more respectable and looking more professional.
2) Add multiple offers
You do not have to limit your text messages to 160 characters when you’re working with a bulk SMS tool, such as Messente’s SMS platform. Our SMS gateway and API allows you to send long-form messages.
However, you still want to be able to keep your messages short to encourage people to read them. Check their length with our SMS Length Calculator!
You can also link your text messages to incentives, especially when you start seeing how people react to your messages. It is absolutely necessary to track your campaign results using analytical tools, and over time, you can run A/B testing to monitor reactions to different types of messages using a standard or personalised approach.
You can also mix in a bit of promotional content into your notifications or OTPs to use SMS text as a marketing channel for these promotions. Though make sure that you meet all the needed regulations and get permission if necessary.
3) Easy interaction
Links, keywords, and offer details allow quick interaction or simple codes to input right after the SMS. Everything that makes converting via the message as simple as possible. For each step that the users have to take, the conversion can drop, so making things easy to interact with is key.
Also, make sure your landing pages are mobile optimised. There is nothing more frustrating for a customer than following a link to a page that can’t open properly.
The best practices are to link to a highly enticing and optimised website with a short text message that can further inform and encourage the customers to take action.
This easy interaction with just a short message service can link people to all manner of sites that the customer should easily navigate through at their own will.
4) Send a few more
You may be surprised to learn that the “sweet spot” for how many text messages increased conversion rates was not just one or two, but as many as three or more – resulting in as much as a 328% increase in conversions, based on our customers' experience.
But beyond just throwing around numbers, it’s important to realise that each one of these text messages has some type of value in it for the consumer. Just blasting them with irrelevant offers and hoping some of them stick won’t work.
Learn more about SMS marketing in our expert's guide!
People value their time, and many of them are paying for the luxury of sending and receiving a set number of texts each month. Making each text message count is just as important with texting as it is with email, if not more so because of the cost.
5) Make use of the immediacy
Because SMS is immediate, you need to make sure your messaging offers real value.
SMS isn't meant to be used like email or even push notifications. If you’re promoting an event that’s on Saturday, the SMS message better not go out the Monday before. It will be forgotten.
You can easily send text messages on the day of an event to promote it and send a link to the social media page. This just isn't possible with any other means of communication.
You can make this go further by sending multiple time-sensitive text messages in the build-up to an appointment. This will consistently remind the customers of what is coming up.
For example, send the marketing message earlier in the week with information and to see if they are interested. Then remind them of the event if they were a subscriber or replied on the day of the event.
6) Speak your audience’s language
When using these SMS marketing tips, you have limited characters to work with. Understand how consumers write their texts, the language they use and use that knowledge to your advantage when composing your text messages.
If you’re too formal, it won’t come as natural to your customer, lessening their interest. Your language should fit within the text messaging environment. It shouldn't be too obvious that your SMS is text marketing as this will alienate customers.
Have the text messaging language be fun, simple and clear. Don’t just place an obviously branded message right in front of their face.
Keep your text messages short and to the point; there is no reason to waffle. Don’t try to explain in detail in the text when you can just include a link to a social media page or a website.
Using SMS language appropriately can increase the number of sales you can make and grow your business with more subscribers.
7) Take care of your database
Make sure you clean the database using the HLR service and that the customers have a clear way of inputting their phone numbers. Also, once you send out the first campaign, ask for detailed statistics and data on why numbers were unreachable or why failures happened, as well as how many were blacklisted. This way you can keep your phonebook’s quality high.
Learning from your mistakes is so important in business and a text marketing campaign is no different. Successful SMS marketing requires you to find which texts aren't working and eliminate or change these ones quickly to waste as little time and money as possible.
Craft every text message so your audience has to take notice. You can only do this by studying your database and monitoring your success rates.
8) Timing is everything
Take into consideration the time and likelihood of conversion before you start your SMS marketing campaign. Since scheduling is possible, make sure your campaign is set to deliver at the optimal time for your customers.
No sense in sending it at 02:00 at night. In regards to time, one of the SMS marketing best practices is to think of when you would be most likely to answer the phone.
Conclusion
These SMS marketing tips are a good guide to get you started and help improve your text marketing strategy. Sending 160 characters via text may seem like a tricky proposition to advertise an entire business, but with links and alerts, you can easily increase awareness for your company.
There are a plethora of SMS marketing best practices to make your text messaging campaigns better. Make sure you track your conversion, A/B test, and note what works and what doesn’t. This way you can reach the best possible result in your marketing efforts, and get the highest possible ROI out of each SMS.
