Text message marking is an increasingly popular way to reach customers across many different industries. For SMS to work for your business, it's important to understand how the platform works. Here are some key parts to any SMS marketing campaign that you should know ahead of time:
Set goals
Before you start sending bulk SMS for your campaign, it's important to understand what you hope it accomplishes. Even through text message marketing is versatile, it's best to have one major goal in mind. Discuss what your goals are and what the best way to attain them is so that you can construct your text messages accordingly.
"It's important to understand how SMS marketing works."
Offer value
For an SMS marketing campaign to be successful, your customers have to feel like it's valuable to them. While the specifics of this may vary from business to business, a good place to start is by including offers, discounts and tips. Also, adding exclusive content or deals just for your subscribers will add value and help you increase your opt-ins.
Be clear
Due to government regulations, customers have to subscribe to a messaging service. As part of that, companies have to disclose the frequency at which those messages will be sent out, so it's important to adhere to that set amount. Also, if your business is one that sends out non-promotional messages, like appointment reminders or shipping updates, it's best to keep those channels strictly informational, as marketing messages will likely frustrate those customers.
Respect boundaries
In an SMS marketing campaign, it is critical to send out messages at times when your customers are most likely to see them. Not only will other times — like early in the morning or during rush hour — lead to lower engagement, but it may annoy customers enough to opt out.
Monitor data
The prior points are all considerations that should be made before you start a campaign, but once you begin, there's still more work to be done. There is a lot of data that can be gathered and analyzed from a text message marketing campaign, allowing you to constantly review the program to see what's working and to fix what isn't. This will help keep your messaging relevant and working for you.
A powerful SMS gateway can help you leverage the buying power of your SMS subscribers and make your SMS marketing campaign successful.
