SMS marketing is an ideal choice for all size of businesses to communicate effectively with their audience. Even though their many modes of online and offline communication available now in the internet era, SMS is still considered to be the quickest and most inexpensive way.
There are more than six billion mobile devices in use now, and SMS reaches almost 90% of the cell phone users. This points to the fact that texting rules the mobile market and its open rate is more than e-mail or other modes of communication.
SMS marketing
Text marketing or SMS marketing is the most efficient tool to engage customers now and gain their attention and loyalty. Supporting this claim, we have some exciting research stats also to put forth:
- The receivers open about 98% of the SMS messages and read instantly.
- About 90% of the SMS messages are read within 3 minutes of receipt.
- The redemption rate of coupons through SMS is almost ten times higher than the distributed print coupons.
Through SMS marketing, you have the scope of sending your marketing message right to the hand of the consumers. SMS messages can reach to the people on the go, and with the open rate as we’d seen above, it is for sure that most of them will read it instantly. There is a scope of SMS marketing campaign automation also now, which makes it easier for the marketers to reach to more people in lesser time. This counts SMS as a perfect tool for business communication and quick-time offers.
Automated SMS sending
Many providers now offer automated SMS services, which help you to save your time and money to send follow-up messages to the contacts, notify the sales agents, and get quick feedbacks and more. You can custom set the delivery schedules and pitch in at the right time with the right message. Some other usages of automated messaging are:
- Sending appointment reminders
- Reminders about events around
- Coupon code or confirmations
- Notification of flash sales or happy hour offers.
Considering all these, every marketer may want to try SMS marketing as an option. However, properly communicating marketing content through SMS requires a bit of effort and a perfect strategy. Like any other effective marketing technique, Simple Texting marketing also has a lot of rules along with good and bad practices. Further, in this article, we will explore the major do's and don'ts of SMS marketing which the users need to consider.
Do’s of SMS marketing.
- Call to action
As we know, SMS is a short messaging service and the character limitation for each SMS message is 160. To rightly communicate your message within this limit need excellent planning and creativity. The ideal approach marketers use in weaving perfect SMS marketing is the use of 5 W’ and one H’ strategy.
- The 5 W’s are: Who, What, Where, When, Why and
- H: How
In this sequence, towards the end, Why and How needs to set a proper foundation to your call to action. With this, you have to tell your customers as to what to do next for their benefit. For example
- WHY do CTA: to get a special discount coupon.
- HOW to get it: by replying with a shortcode.
- Be short
Brief and precise is the key aspects to consider for SMS marketing. You need to be very skillful and focused on creating it short, yet effective. The ideal way is to apply the KISS (Keep it Short and Simple) strategy.
- Start it right
The first two-three words of your SMS will decide whether the reader may continue with it to now more or leave it. There are just 160 characters to play with, so you need to get the best out of each work in it. Always try to start your message with an attention grabber, i.e., special offer, free offer or flash sale, etc.
Don’ts of SMS marketing.
- Take the minimalist approach and stay focused
Even when the customers are opted in to get an SMS message from you, don't try to bombard them with a rain of SMS all the times. Timing of hitting their inbox is crucial, and the frequency of messaging is also important. Never do SMS marketing just for the sake of doing it or to keep a set interval. If there is nothing worth to share, it is better to stay silent than troubling them. Always make sure that the delivery of your message some real value and benefits to the readers.
- Avoid abbreviations and local slangs
Even though there is a limitation of the world, it is not ideal for rare text abbreviations in business messaging. The same rule needed to be followed in the usage of slangs too. Not everyone may understand the industry-specific abbreviations or slangs. Even though using abbreviations and slangs may be felt so appealing with the space restriction, with this, you are risking the customer understanding and action.
- Don’t always try to sell
It is not just from you, but each in your target audience is exposed to a larger number of marketing SMS a day. So, imagine if you are just one among them who always send messages with a sales pitch. There is a high possibility that you aren't constantly read or given any consideration. I may be true that you are desperate about selling your products and services, but you need to do it a balanced way. Take a more human and empathetic approach while communicating.
In fact, SMS marketing for business marketers is now permission-based, and you cannot contact anyone in random without permission. So, those who have already permitted you to send messages are loyal to you and don't want to miss out any valuable information from your end. Always try to reward this loyalty with the best possible messages, which make them feel special and also give them some benefits once in a while like exclusive discounts or special offers etc.