The Ultimate Guide to SMS Marketing

The Ultimate Guide to SMS Marketing

SMS marketing can be an extremely effective strategy for your business. It is great for driving conversions, curating brand loyalty and providing customer service.

More and more businesses are catching the SMS marketing wave. In fact, Finances Online predicts that in 2023, 3.5 trillion business texts will be sent. That’s compared to an estimated 2.5 trillion business texts in 2019.

It’s also true that when done right, SMS marketing can have a positive effect on sales. Perhaps more importantly, however, the texting capability of a business can improve consumers’ attitudes towards that brand. In fact, 77% of consumers are likely to have a positive perception of a company that offers texting.

In order to help your business reach your full potential with SMS marketing, this article will explore and explain everything that you need to know! 

Spoiler alert: it actually isn’t rocket science!

‘Telephone Consumer Privacy Act’ compliance

Before embarking on any SMS marketing campaigns, the first thing you need to do is get familiar with TCPA compliance. The TCPA was originally passed in 1991 to protect consumers against an onslaught of telemarketing calls but has since been updated to include SMS marketing, as well.

If your business is found to be in violation of the TCPA, you could be subject to fines per unlawful message. If you’re sending bulk text messages, those fines could rack up pretty quickly. Plus, unlawful or unsolicited messages are just a bad look for your brand. Therefore, it’s in your best interest to get friendly with the TCPA.

The guiding principle, however, is this: your business can only text people who have opted-in to receiving text communications. If you have obtained contact information from another source- such as purchase from a third party- that does not mean that you automatically have the go-ahead to use that information to send marketing texts.

Your business must have express written consent from consumers before you begin shooting SMS marketing campaigns their way. Provide opt-in methods everywhere: your website, social media channels and in-person. Better yet, require a double opt-in. In the first message sent to a new subscriber, ask them to confirm their subscription to text marketing from your business.

Don’t forget: subscribers should also be offered a clear and simple route to unsubscribe, should they so choose. Your brand does not want to be holding people hostage to SMS marketing campaigns; this will only result in people becoming frustrated and viewing your brand in a negative light.

Building Your List

Once you have text-enabled your business, either through mobile or landline texting, and familiarized yourself with the TCPA, it’s time to start gathering subscribers. As it was stated earlier, customers have to opt-in to receiving your SMS marketing campaigns, so you need to entice them to do so.

As with other marketing strategies, you need to constantly ask yourself, “What value am I providing to my customers?” Obviously, the value to your business is promotional, but that isn’t always appealing to a wide array of customers. This is especially true in 2020 as consumers become increasingly bombarded with requests for their contact information. If people hand over that information, they want to know what they will get out of it!

One of the best ways to build your SMS marketing list is by offering an incentive- something that you can give customers in return for their coveted phone number.

Here are a few incentives you can offer customers to gather mobile phone numbers:

• Coupon or discount to use on their next purchase- either in-store or online.

Example: “Want 10% off your next purchase with us? Text us at (business phone number or short code) to receive the coupon- as well as even more business updates and exclusive offers!

• A text-to-win contest. Customers can text your business for a chance to win a special prize. 

Example: “Text us to subscribe to our SMS list for a chance to win a FREE dinner       for two!”

• Freebies can also be effective; for example, offer a special service or add-on to a purchase that would normally be an extra charge.

Example: “Text us to subscribe to our SMS list and get one FREE dessert the next time you dine-in!

When offering incentives, it is also important to inform customers of what exactly they are opting in to. Be clear that, in addition to receiving a discount/prize/freebie, people are also agreeing to future text communications from your business.

Display opt-in instructions and accompanying incentives everywhere you can for the best success in building a formidable list!

Planning SMS marketing campaigns

When it comes to formulating your first SMS marketing campaign, there are a couple things to keep in mind:

• Campaign goals; as with any marketing goals, these should be specific and time-sensitive.
• Brand tone; i.e. are your brand communications casual or professional, humorous or serious, enthusiastic or matter-of-fact, etc.
• The value provided to customers

Once you have figured out what you hope to achieve with your SMS marketing campaign, you can determine what value you hope to provide to customers. They subscribed to your list, so they must be interested in your brand. The question is: what do they want from your texts? 

One of the best ways to offer the maximum amount of value to each customer is to segment your subscriber list based on specific characteristics. For instance, split contact info into segments based on demographic or, better yet, customer personas. Or try organizing your list based on the method of acquisition. For instance, who subscribed online and who subscribed in-person? How do the wants and needs of those two groups differ?

Segmenting your list in such a way that helps you better understand the customers will allow you to get personal with your SMS marketing. This is not a “one-size-fits-all” approach; the better you are at providing value through your SMS marketing, the more likely customers will be to not only remain subscribed, but to spread the news and become brand loyalists.

As you’re writing out each message, keep these tips in mind:

• Limit texts to 160 characters- short, sweet and to-the-point
• Keep language conversational
• Integrate a sense of urgency, like “for a limited time” or “while supplies last.” 
• Include a clear ‘Call to Action’; i.e. what do you want the customer to do after receiving the text?

The last thing to consider before finalizing each campaign is the timing of every message. It’s not appropriate or desirable, frankly, to send messages late at night, for instance. Not only will this decrease your chances at conversion, but it will also put your brand’s reputation into question. Customers may find inappropriate timing to be annoying and/or confusing.

Best practices of SMS marketing always include message timing. It may take a little bit of trial and error before you identify the absolute best time of day to send marketing texts, however use “normal business hours” as a starting reference for your first few campaigns.

Identify KPIs and track analytics

As informative and valuable as this article is, we can’t give you all the answers. Each industry and brand is going to be different; you need to be sure you have a clear way of tracking what is working in your SMS marketing and what needs to be adjusted.

One of the ways to do this is by identifying your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). These should directly correlate to the goal you set forth in the beginning of your campaign. Which factors indicate success or failure to reach your goal?

Many business texting services will also track analytics for each campaign, such as open rates, click-through rates, etc. Keep an eye on analytics to better form each campaign. For instance, if one campaign has significantly higher click-through rates than another, it is incumbent upon you and/or your team to ascertain why that is and how you can duplicate those results.

Practice makes progress when it comes to SMS marketing, but carefully tracking KPIs and analytics will help you make progress much faster!

— SMS marketing is a powerful and versatile tool; it really comes down to finding out what works for your business. If you’re ready to incorporate SMS marketing into your overall marketing strategy, contact us to start your 14-day free trial today!