When it comes to content marketing, such as SMS Marketing, it seems like the only things that some people want to talk about are vanity metrics: how many subscribers you have to your newsletter, follower count on social media, likes on your latest social media post, etc. While those things certainly can be indicators of success, they are not the only indicators- or even the most important ones.
For example, obviously you’d want to have a long list of email newsletter or SMS marketing subscribers. The more people who receive your content, the better chance it has to convert, right? Well, yes and no.
Modern content marketers need to focus as much attention, if not more, on increasing customer engagement as they do on increasing vanity metrics. Unfortunately, increasing customer engagement doesn’t have a one-size-fits-all approach; successfully increasing customer engagement will look different from business to business. But hey, that’s the fun of marketing, right?!
If your business is looking to increase customer engagement, consider implementing SMS marketing into your overall strategy. It’s one of the preferred communication platforms of many consumers, and there are a ton of great strategies to try out to find out what works best with your audience.
But first, let’s look at customer engagement in a little more detail…
5 Ways to Increase Customer Engagement with SMS Marketing
What is customer engagement?
Customer engagement is one of those marketing buzzwords that can feel rather broad and difficult to define. However, customer engagement basically describes the amount and quality of interactions that a customer chooses to perform with your brand. The goal of increasing customer engagement is to curate an emotional bond with customers and build brand loyalty.
One of the best ways to increase customer engagement is merely by providing valuable content to your customers, SMS marketing subscribers, social media followers, etc. Marketing is not merely setting up pay-per-click advertising campaigns and clocking out. Providing educational, entertaining or otherwise valuable content to your audience will help you to build a connection with them that goes beyond making a sale.
When that connection is established and your audience feels as though they can trust your brand, you’ll have a loyal customer for life (who will probably also refer your business to their friends and family).
Customer engagement is key to building a successful business in today’s environment. The more engaged your customer is, the less likely they’ll be to look to your competition to make a purchase, and that could result in huge gains for your business. In fact, increasing customer retention by just 5% can increase profits by 20%-95%!
Now, let’s find out how SMS marketing can help…
How can I increase customer engagement through SMS marketing?
- Start
a loyalty program.
SMS marketing capabilities give your business the perfect opportunity to implement a customer loyalty program. Gone are the days of punch cards for tracking purchases. Instead, ask customers who are enrolled in your loyalty program to provide their phone number at checkout and allow them to earn rewards based on how much they shop with your business. Shoot participating customers a text after they’ve made a purchase to confirm and alert them as to how far away they are from earning their reward!
Loyalty programs and rewards are excellent incentives to keep your customers engaged and coming back for more. They’re also a great way to say ‘thank you’ once in a while for their continued patronage. After all, they deserve it; members of loyalty programs generate 12%-18% more revenue growth annually than non-members for businesses.
- Text-to-win contests.
A text-to-win contest is pretty much exactly what it sounds like: customers are given a specific keyword to text to a shortcode to be entered to win.
Here’s an example:
Perhaps you’re an e-commerce store looking to attract customers. With a text-to win-contest, you might ask participating customers to text ‘FASHION’ (the keyword) to ‘333444’ (the shortcode) to be entered to win one free piece from your brand new line. It’s that easy!
Don’t forget: just because customers enter your text-to-win contest, that does not mean that they’ve opted in to receiving your SMS marketing efforts, as well. After they’ve entered the contest, however, give them the opportunity to opt-in to your SMS marketing list!
Text-to-win contests are great for increasing customer engagement because it won’t cost your business much at all to attract a bunch of potential new customers! Customers will love it too because, duh! Who doesn’t love to win free stuff?
Pro tip: Be sure to display instructions on how to participate in your text-to-win contest everywhere. Notify SMS marketing subscribers via text, but be sure to post it on your social media, include it in your email newsletter and on your website!
- Send mobile coupons.
One of our favorite suggestions for building your SMS marketing list is to offer exclusive deals and coupons. It makes for a great incentive to motivate people to sign up in the first place.
Mobile coupons are also an excellent way to increase customer engagement because your business will provide value to your SMS marketing subscribers each time you make good on your promise for exclusive deals. On top of that, exclusive offers are perfect for making your customers feel special.
Pro tip: Make sure your SMS marketing opt-in instructions are posted everywhere, just like your text-to-win contest instructions. When friends of your current subscribers see and hear about the exclusive deals available through your SMS marketing list, they will definitely want to join, and you’ll want to make that process as easy as possible.
- Send tips.
Educational content is excellent for encouraging customer engagement, and who knows your industry better than you? Share your industry expertise with your SMS marketing list!
For instance, if you run a fashion brand, send styling tips via text with a link to get more information or to shop. If you run a fitness business, send workout tips to your SMS marketing subscribers. If you run a restaurant, send simple cooking tips. You can see how the options are vast and limitless!
Pro tip: If your website has a blog, repurpose blog content to formulate short tips for your SMS marketing campaigns. Then, be sure to include a link to the blog post for those who’d like to get more information.
- Use MMS!
As much as we talk about SMS (short message service) marketing, it may be easy to forget about MMS (multimedia message service). However, neglecting to use MMS would be a big mistake!
The big difference between these two message types is that SMS allows a 160-character, text-only message. MMS, on the other hand, enables you to send pictures, videos, voice memos, GIFs and more.
MMS also boasts a 15% click through rate, according to Klick, which is obviously great news for your customer engagement. MMS messages are perfect for coupons, as well as any messages where you would benefit from showing off your product.
It’s no secret that humans are visual creatures, so use that to your advantage during your text message marketing!
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Engaging content is your path to brand loyalty and a steadily growing business. Use SMS marketing to take one step closer to developing an omnichannel marketing strategy in which you’re engaging customers consistently and in a way that benefits them as much as it benefits your business. For more free tips on how to make the most of your SMS marketing strategy, check out the rest of our blog!
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