Although many marketing strategies today have begun to move away from it, Short message service or SMS marketing can still be an extremely valuable tool if used in the right way. SMS marketing has the power to increase leads and conversion rates for businesses even in the world of e-commerce. Digital marketing is taking over the market in 2022, and rightly so, with the whole world now spending the majority of their time online on social media platforms, however, SMS marketing still absolutely has its place. Read through our guide on how you can leverage SMS marketing the right way to help your business grow.
Timing is everything
When it comes to SMS marketing, the timing is everything. It is important to remember that consumers are unlikely to want to engage with marketing outside of business hours so try to keep your SMS marketing messages strictly to business hours. Additionally, when it comes to responding to customer interactions, such as signing up for emails, placing an order or an event or sale that they have signed up for, responding to and sending messages at the right time is critical. If you don’t manage to respond quickly enough you may lose the window for engagement and reduce the chances for conversions.
Set the right tone
An SMS message is being sent directly to customers’ phones, and as such, it should feel personal to them. Try to use language that is directly targeted at your customers and makes them feel like you are talking to them personally, rather than to an audience. It is also worth remembering that an SMS marketing campaign is strictly made up of words, with no graphics or images to support it. Because of this, it might be worthwhile to hire an experienced copywriter to curate these campaigns or make use of your affiliate partnerships who already have a strong personal connection and understanding of their audience.
Keep it short and simple
An SMS message is extremely short, usually just 160 characters. Because of this, brands have to be extremely concise and direct in their language and make sure that every word counts. Avoid jargon and complex language, instead keep things simple, clear and accessible.
Target your customers
When you are planning your SMS marketing campaign, the first thing you should do is work hard to understand your customers. Investigate customer features such as age, profession, location, browsing and purchase history. Understanding your customers and what draws them to a product can really help you to tailor all of your marketing campaigns to your customers directly. It has been shown that consumers react best to personalised content, so offer them deals and talk to them in a way that they will best connect with.
It is also important to remember that SMS marketing is very intimate. Because of this, you should not shower consumers with lots of messages all the time. Instead, be sure to only reach out when you have something worthwhile for both you and the customer to say. Here are a few reasons you might want to make use of an SMS marketing campaign:
- To let customers know about limited-time offers
- To welcome new subscribers or customers
- To send personalised offers
- To update customers on the shipping and delivery of a purchase
- To let customers know about a new product or service you are offering
- To remind customers about appointments, webinars, abandoned shopping carts or events
- To request reviews and feedback from customers
- To send links for customers to download apps, tickets or other content
- To provide a customer with customer support.
Do what you can to stand out from the crowd. See what kind of things other brands are doing in their SMS marketing campaigns and investigate how you could replicate or improve on these. Make sure your content is reflecting the personality of your brand to the best of its abilities to help increase conversions and customer loyalty.
Write a strong CTA
One of the most crucial parts of any SMS campaign is a strong call-to-action (CTA). The CTA is telling your customers what they should do next. If they are interested in your brand or content a CTA is there as a way to guide them onto their next steps, such as entering an email address to sign up for your newsletter, a link to your website, answering a question, entering a competition or buying a product. A CTA can also include a promotion code that contains personalised offers.
Much like the main body of your SMS marketing message, your CTA should be short and sharp, with easy-to-understand language such as “sign up now” or “buy here”. These phrases will convey your message and offer an easily identifiable path for the customer to follow.
Conclusion
On the whole, an effective SMS marketing campaign should be customer-centred, and be used with a clear goal in mind. SMS messaging can be a powerful tool to increase your audience and encourage conversions, so use it wisely!
