Did you know the average person sends and receives more than 40 text messages a day? And not only that! Did you know that SMS open rates go well beyond 90%, and that around 98% of text messages are read within the first 3 minutes from receiving them?
In fact SMS open & read rate is several times higher than the average email campaign or a social media post can achieve. This means no marketer or business owner should ever underestimate the marketing power of SMS.
SMS is a very powerful tool to communicate with your customers as it doesn’t rely on an internet connection, it’s incredibly fast, can be used to reach anyone with a mobile phone (which is roughly around 90% of adult population). The text messaging option is built into the default operating system of every phone used today and it enables business owners to reach both those with smartphones and with a feature phone (that’s actually what we called mobile phones built before the smartphone era).
Born in the periphery of advertising, mobile campaigns have now become an integral part of every successful marketing campaign. Mobile campaigns are most commonly focused on reaching the audience through SMS (text messaging). With the introduction of smartphones, marketing experts have perfected strategies for mobile campaigns which can now be distributed via emails and different apps.
With so many new ways to reach customers on mobile, SMS marketing remains one of the fastest growing sales-boosting channels in the world of digital marketing. It is constantly being used as a tool to enlarge customer databases and to increase sales, especially if your goal is to reach a large number of people fast.
Results from research on mobile ads conducted in 2016 showed that text-based ads are much more favorable among its audience than other types of mobile ads such as pop-ups, video ads or so called ‘following’ ads which are, for instance, appearing on mobile screens while people browse social media.
Text-based ads are quite favorable, compared to other formats [Image Credit: HubSpot]
People consider SMS ads to be less intrusive and less disruptive than others mentioned, and the customers are always right, aren’t they?
How to use SMS marketing?
To start using an SMS marketing campaign for your small business, you need to have a database of customers to send text messages to. This database is quite easy to compile such as by inviting customers to text a keyword to a short code number offered by your mobile service provider. For example, if you run a pizza restaurant, you can ask your potential customers to text the word ‘pizza’ to a short code number in order to get a free pizza on their next visit. You can display the code in your email newsletters, on door to door flyers or inside the restaurant itself. When a person opts into your SMS marketing services, they are added to your database of customers and opted in to receive future text messages from your business.
You can use SMS marketing for clarity, immediacy, sales boosting and effective business promotion. The great thing is they are always opened! Frankly, we don’t know if somebody can actually ignore an SMS, we all just want to know what’s inside that little message!
Still, there are some rules you should stick to while creating your SMS marketing campaign:
Don’t make it too long
Keep in mind that an SMS is not an email and that an SMS sent to your customers needs to be short, clear and engaging. Writing too long text messages can result in breaking the text into two separate messages, which can do serious damage to your campaign. Always keep it to one message length.
Think about timing
As a business owner you know that there is good time for every purchase. For example, a shoe store owner may have most sales on the weekend and so it’s maybe best to send out an SMS offer with a coupon codes towards the end of the week so that people have it front of mind to use it during the upcoming weekend. Alternatively a local pizza shop may have the same for the lunch hours so could send their SMS at 11am when people are considering their lunch options. Find the perfect time for your offer and send that text to your customers!
American clothing retailer Lands’ End recently used timely SMS marketing to boost their Mother’s Day sales. The aim of their campaign was to remind their customers that Mother’s Day was close and to drive them to a mobile site to buy gift cards. The company sent two different SMS messages leading up to the holiday to make sure the offer was on their customer’s mind.
By recognizing that the holidays were an ideal opportunity to send out SMS messages, Lands’ End were able to make their campaign very successful by offering a valuable and timely incentive.
SMS marketing needs a CTAs as well
Like any marketing campaign, an SMS campaign also needs to have a clear and visible Call to Action (CTA). Since there is no option for an eye-catching CTA button in an SMS, make sure you invite your customers the good old fashioned way, by using words.
Create a compelling text and add a (shortened) URL to your mobile landing page to let your customers know you have something great for them! If you don’t want to use standard shorteners, you can use some really cool tools that enable you to use your own domain with a brand name in a shortened URL.
SMS marketing and mobile landing pages
When you use SMS marketing make sure you direct the SMS message to a landing page built just for mobile. It should load fast and work both on smart and feature phones so don’t include lots of pictures and many sections with lots of information. A mobile landing page should be as simple and effective as the SMS itself.
Remember people read information quicker on mobile compared to desktop so an optimised page (for desktop and mobile) won’t work. Build the landing page just for mobile by keeping the text short and as concise as possible.
Keep in mind that your landing page CTA needs to be in line with your SMS message CTA. For instance, if there is ‘Click to claim your 20% off coupon’ CTA in your SMS, make sure that the same CTA with the same offer is also clearly visible as soon as your customers land on your mobile page.
When is it effective to use SMS campaigns?
SMS campaigns are used to promote your business, product and services and due to their immediacy and potential to reach customers wherever they are, they’re especially effective in the following situations:
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When you need a very high response rate
It’s hard for people to ignore it, so if you want to reach as many people possible, don’t hesitate to send them that SMS with your latest offer!
Just recently, US restaurant chain Hooters initiated an SMS campaign through which they offered their customers a chance to win a trip to the destination of their choice. Offering an incentive such as free trip helped Hooters to significantly enlarge their mobile customers database. Hooters uses SMS in their marketing campaigns quite often which helps them to drive brand awareness and increase their sales.
SMS is a great choice when you want a high response rate [Image Credit: Pexels]
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In case of miscommunication
If your customers, for example, wrote their email incorrectly and your newsletters are not getting through, you can easily reach them with an SMS saying “Hi, you probably didn’t write your email correctly. Can you please click on the link (to a form) and change your email?”
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For instant marketing solutions
Automated text messaging enables you to reach your customers any place and any time with personalized targeted content directly to their phones.
For example, people who visit a retail store, or see an advert online or offline (such as a poster or a flyer), can text the word “Sale” to a specific number and get an SMS back with a coupon. All of this, of course, after they’ve filled a form with their required details.
To set this automation process up yourself you can use an online tool such as smoove. It allows you to reach your customers via SMS faster and easier than ever.
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To make things easier for your customers
Worried that your customers might forget their appointment they made with you days, weeks or months ago? You can use an SMS to remind people about an appointment they may have booked, or a sale you may have on so they don’t miss it. You could also include your address and phone number for easy reach in case they need it.
If you organise events you can create an SMS campaign with a link to a mobile landing page which contains a map of the event and even a Waze button to take them to the exact location of the event.
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For last minute communications
With extremely high open rates text messaging is a perfect marketing tool for all your last-minute offers and any last minute changes you may have.
For example, you can use it for a flash sale in your store, or an unpredictable situation such as a last minute change of location for your event or to help your customers navigate through any last minute traffic restrictions. Reaching your customers via SMS is much faster and more guaranteed than doing it with an email or any other form of communication.
Wrap-up
SMS marketing is one of the most important and fastest growing marketing channels for small businesses. It’s fast, reliable, doesn’t require an internet connection and stands as one of the best tools to enlarge your customer database.
Don’t make your SMS too long and think about the perfect time to send it out to your customers. Use short and compelling text with a shortened URL leading to your mobile landing page.
SMS marketing is a great tool to use for instant marketing solutions, to get higher response rate, make things easier for your customers and also for a last minute communications.
By using small business marketing software such as smoove with its automated text messaging service you can now reach your customers in a few simple steps, wherever they are. You can easily create mobile landing pages so when your contacts receive your SMS they can click directly to your mobile content and complete any CTA or forms. And if you want to link your mobile campaign to something else, don’t worry, smoove enables you to link any SMS to any mobile web page you desire.
All you need now is to come up with an idea for your mobile campaign!
