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Finding different ways of reaching out to customers is necessary for achieving business growth. Luckily, with the development of technology, marketers are now in a position to reach out to a high number of people in a variety of different ways.
One particularly popular way of advertising is definitely SMS marketing, as it is an effective way of delivering promotions directly to your customers. Additionally, according to Pew Research Center, more than 95% of people in America own a cellphone, meaning that you can reach out to practically anyone through this medium of communication.
Even though SMS is considered fairly similar to an email marketing campaign, there are some golden rules for text message marketing you should implement in your strategy, to successfully achieve better results. Let’s take a look at the things you should and also the things you shouldn’t do in your text message marketing strategy.
Build a contact list naturally
This actually refers to both email and text message list building. If you choose the easy way and simply purchase the list of contacts from a seller, your advertising efforts are not going to be effective at all.
Therefore, to make sure that you are building a list of contacts who are actually going to react to your messages, make sure that you do it naturally. You can either offer this option to people who are coming to your store, or use your website. It is imperative that you notify your customer that you will use the number in the future to notify them about promotions. If they say yes, you know that they are going to be interested in what you have to offer.
This method takes more time, but let’s you build an audience that is actually going to read the smses you are sending them. That will make your mobile marketing much more effective from the beginning of the list building process.
Pick the right time
You should be aware that you now have the private numbers of your customers. Don’t use these numbers to bother them, but pick the optimal time of day when you are going to deliver your text message. The golden rule is to avoid nights and mornings. Additionally, text messaging is used for delivering calls to action, so make sure that you send the texts to your customers when your business is actually open.
You can easily experiment and find out which time of day is best for sending text messages, as Textedly tools allow you to monitor customer behavior. Having access to these analytics will make it possible for you to pick the perfect part of the day for delivering your messages.
Stay concise and deliver the call to actionaturally
You are limited to 160 characters with every SMS you send. It is necessary to optimize your text to include the following:
Call to action – Make a clear call to action, and be clear on what the text message is about and what you are offering them. Add a link to your business website as well, as most people access the web via their smartphones anyway.
Who you are – Don’t forget to mention the name of your business, without it, the whole message will look fishy and will be ignored by the customer.
Following these clear rules will allow you to create concise text messages that successfully deliver the notification to your customer, without any ambiguity.
Open the communication channel
Don’t use text messaging only for sending offers to your customers. It is better to use it as a two-way communication channel, in which the customer can ask you a follow-up question, giving you the opportunity to provide even more details for them.
This is very important, as a reply means that the customer is interested in your offer, making it possible for you to close a deal more easily.
Additionally, enabling customers to easily reach out to you via texting can only bring benefits to your business, as this form of communication is quite personal, and helps build better relations with your customers.
Don't do it on the schedule
Even though text messaging is in some ways similar to email marketing, it should never be run on schedule. Keep in mind that over 90% of text messages get read 3 minutes after delivery, which is a much higher figure than email. Therefore, make sure that you do not spam your customers. Regularly sending scheduled text messages is going to result in the customer unsubscribing from your number list, which is the last thing you want to happen.
It is simple – email marketing is used to update customers on the latest news and notify them about promotions that last a bit longer. Text messaging, on the other hand, should be used when a customer needs to act faster, e.g. when there is a special promotion that is only open for a short period of time.
Therefore, in order to keep the engagement high, text your customers in longer time intervals.
Make it possible to opt out
No matter how great your sms marketing content is, it is imperative to always notify the customer that there is an easy way for them to unsubscribe from your list.
If you don’t take this step, you will be portrayed as a spammer to other people who have not yet started working with you. To prevent this from occurring, you should remove the person who does not want to receive messages from your contact lists, to avoid any misunderstandings in the future.
Following these rules is going to allow you to build a great contact list of people you can message with special promotions. The good thing is that you can experiment and play with your text message marketing approaches and see which one is the most effective. This is why Textedly is so useful – you can easily analyze and improve upon your text marketing strategy.
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