Smartphones today are like part of the human body. One study shows that around 6.6 billion people worldwide own a smartphone. And according to Pew Research, 85% of Americans own smartphones. Another research by Reviews.org reveals the first thing 71% of Americans do in the first 10 minutes after waking up is to scroll through their phones.
So, if you’re a business owner, these numbers clearly show that you need to embrace text marketing. Doing so offers you high-powered communication with your consumers. And over time, you’ll be able to create more intimate connections with your consumers.
If you’re looking for a cost-effective way, alongside solutions like Drop Cowboy Ringless Voicemail, to reach your target audience and promote your business, text marketing is the answer. It’s also a great method to use alongside email and social media marketing. This is more important because some people disable notifications from social networks or emails.
Here’s a look at everything you need to learn to get started with text marketing. The knowledge you gain will help you communicate straight with your target audience.
Table of Contents
What Is Text Marketing?
Text marketing is the practice of sending promotional messages to your target audience’s phones through text messages. It’s also known by another name, and that is short message service (SMS) marketing. Like Auto Dialer, companies can use text messaging to share content such as:
- New product announcement
- Time-sensitive updates
- Reminders
- Flash sales
- Text-to-win competitions
- Loyalty programs
- Order delivery updates
- Promotions
- Price drop alerts
- Personalized discounts
The appeal of SMS marketing is growing among businesses due to its high open and response rates. That said, make sure to first get a subscriber’s consent before sending them promotional texts. Besides text-based content, you can send multimedia message service (MMS) messages such as:
- Audio files
- Graphics Interchange Format (GIF) files
- Phone contacts
- Images
- Videos
To start with text marketing, you need to work with a text marketing service. This is so because SMS marketing isn’t something you can do using your smartphone. Today, businesses are using text marketing over social media platforms because of several reasons, such as:
- Text marketing enables your business to reach and engage with its target audience more easily and directly compared to social media platforms. With social media algorithms constantly changing, your business doesn’t always enjoy the same level of leverage when promoting its products or services.
- Unlike social media platforms, you have better control over who to send text messages to.
It shows why text marketing is ideal if you don’t want to deal with the bottlenecks experienced when promoting your brand on social media.
Steps To Create A Text Marketing Campaign
There are specific steps you must follow to make the most out of your text marketing campaign, and here’s a guide to them:
Define Your Goals
An excellent place to start when developing your text marketing campaign is to have a clear set of goals. Overlooking this aspect increases the risk of your text marketing campaign failing right from the start. Some of the core goals to try and achieve during your campaign include the following:
- Generate sales or leads
- Drive traffic to your website or physical store
- Improve brand awareness
- Boost customer loyalty and promote repeat business
- Offer excellent customer service and support
These goals you set must be measurable and realistic. Doing so will help you better examine how well your text marketing campaign is doing. And in case of any shortfalls, you’ll know where to make the necessary changes to get you back on track. A good illustration is instead of blindly increasing sales, set a specific sales target you’re hoping your campaign hits.
Select An SMS Platform
There’s an endless list of options for suitable SMS platforms on the market. The SMS marketing provider you choose needs to have a good understanding of your interests and customer preferences. They should also offer you functions and features that align with your company’s goals.
There are a few factors to consider to help you decide on the SMS platform to choose, including:
- Reliability – The texting platform needs to have a reputation for delivering high-quality service.
- Automation – This will help you save time and streamline your SMS marketing campaign.
- Functionality – The SMS platform needs to incorporate shortcodes, two-way emails, and MMS messaging.
- Access to data – The SMS marketing platform needs to integrate with other marketing software. It also should identify trends after assessing the metrics of your text marketing campaign.
Build Your Subscriber List
The success of your SMS marketing campaign depends on your subscriber list. So, you need to build your subscriber list both in size and quality. If you already have a subscriber list, your starting point will be to check your existing database and look for new client phone numbers.
But if you don’t have such a database, start to offer incentives for people to opt in. Some ideas to attract leads to your subscriber list include giving discounts or exclusive offers.
Before you send your leads any promotional messages, make sure to first ask for consent. Otherwise, you might face legal issues for violating the set legal requirements for SMS marketing. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is particularly strict about this issue.
You can leverage other methods to collect your subscribers’ phone numbers. These techniques include the use of opt-in forms on your website, on social media pages, or in your store. Also, promote your text marketing campaigns to your audience to encourage sign-ups.
Create An SMS Campaign Strategy
One of the most critical steps is drafting a message intended for your target audience. The ideal length for a message is 160 characters. Including too many characters, besides being hard to understand, also appears spammy. Some tips to follow when creating a text message include:
- Use correct grammar – Your goal is for everyone to understand your message. So, you shouldn’t use unnecessary abbreviations and slang when drafting your SMS. Also, avoid improper capitalization or text speak, or you’ll appear unprofessional.
- Consider the message’s value – Make sure your message includes information your customers will find useful. You should do this for promotion, exclusive content, and updates on your products or services.
Sending texts to your customers might at first look intimidating. But it gets easier with time so long as you have a communication strategy during your SMS marketing campaign.
Personalize Your Content
Drafting effective text messages for your SMS marketing campaign is an art and a science. And as a startup owner, your goal is to ensure your message connects with your audience. You can best achieve this by personalizing your text message. As a result, you’ll be able to win over the trust of your customers.
The client information to include when personalizing the text message is the following:
- First and second name
- Age
- Gender
- Birthday
- Interests and preferences
- Purchase history
- In-app or on-site behavior
Including this personal information will help you connect with your leads. Other tips to observe as you write text messages for your audience include:
- Make sure your messages are short and straight to the point. Remember, many people only quickly go over your message. So, it’s crucial you make the SMS easy to read and understand.
- Be sure you’re relevant to your potential leads. You can best guarantee this by using language and messaging that they can resonate with.
- Make sure to add a clear call to action informing your subscribers what you wish them to do next.
- Give your text message a sense of urgency to encourage subscribers to take action.
- Observe the best formatting practices when writing personalized text messages. This means avoiding the use of slang and observing proper grammar and punctuation.
- Optimize Your Campaign
Once your text marketing campaign is running, you need to test and optimize your messaging. And during this phase, there are two crucial elements to focus on—delivery and messaging.
Optimizing delivery starts with choosing an ideal text marketing provider. Your choice of provider must offer benefits such as redundancy, uptime, and carrier relations, to name a few. Determine how to best lower filtering, for instance, when a message gets classified as spam or inappropriate.
Messaging is another element you need to optimize for the best results. A/B testing is an excellent place to start for message optimization, enabling you to compare different offers, visuals, and copy. You’ll then be able to identify the most effective text marketing strategy for your target audience. For instance, you can test which words, coupons, or discounts generate greater business conversions.
Measure And Report
How effective is your text marketing campaign? You need to measure this program’s return on investment. The information will help you know if you need to keep going or make some adjustments to your text marketing campaign.
The metrics you need to check out to track if your text marketing campaign is going as expected include the following:
- Click-through rate (CTR)
- Opt-outs
- Deliverability
- Conversions
- Message open rates
- Revenue
- Sends and replies
Analyzing these metrics will help you make informed decisions about your SMS marketing campaign.
What Are The Best Text Marketing Practices?
It’s no doubt that text marketing is an effective way to get in touch with your potential leads and existing customers. But to optimize your text marketing campaign, you need to observe certain best practices, including the following:
Make Sure To Get Permission
You must never make the mistake of sending text messages to your clients before first asking for their consent. After all, you can’t be sure they want to subscribe to your text messages. So, you must always give your leads a choice to opt-in to your SMS marketing campaign. Give them two straightforward options—yes or no. Don’t send another text if you don’t get a reply from them.
Choose The Right Timing
Choose an ideal time to send your customers or potential leads text messages. Remember, you want to text them when they’ll most likely be receptive and on their phones. For instance, an excellent time to send texts to potential leads of your restaurant business would be at lunchtime to inform them of your offers.
It’s also advisable not to send messages early in the morning or late at night. This can feel disruptive and may lead to opt-outs from your subscribers.
Segment Your Audience
You want to narrow down your SMS marketing campaign for optimal effectiveness. This is why segmenting your target audience is vital as a business owner, as not all customers are alike. You should classify your audience based on demographics, interests, or purchase history.
Include A Call To Action
As mentioned, the suitable length for text messages should be 160 characters or less. It also needs to be clear of industry jargon or complex language that confuses your audience. Therefore, your message will be clearer and easier to understand for your leads.
There are several tips you can follow to make your message concise, and these include the use of short sentences and bullet points. The CTA should also be in the form of a link to improve traceability.
Give The Option To Opt Out
Including instructions to opt out of subscriber lists is a legal requirement. Hence, adding them to your SMS marketing campaign is imperative. After all, you don’t want to send continuous messages to someone uninterested in your products or services. You risk suffering from legal consequences and losing potential leads rather than turning them into clients.
Takeaway
The popularity of text marketing has, in recent years, been rising steadily. And it’s no surprise that SMS marketing has become a great tool businesses use to reach and engage customers. But to enjoy its many benefits, you need to understand how it all works before you even get started. This way, you can create a marketing campaign that best appeals to your potential customers.
So, to get started with SMS marketing, outlined above are all of the valuable insights and practices you need to put in place. Following these tips will help you create a successful text marketing campaign. As a result, you’ll be able to drive engagement with your audience and effectively promote your products or services.