Text message marketing isn’t for everyone
[drop_cap_medium]F[/drop_cap_medium]irst things first: Text message marketing isn’t for everyone. It’s not that it is more complex than other marketing processes, it’s just that it is only worth engaging in under specific conditions. Wondering if your business is the right fit? Only two ways to find out:
- Read this article and arrive at an educated decision
- Follow this rule of thumb: If you were your own customer, would you actually derive value from a regular text message sent to your phone? How do you decide what ‘value’ actually is? See option 1.
The basics
Here’s a helpful statistic: 97% of smartphone owners use text messaging to communicate. In fact, a recent Pew Research Survey shows that texting, not voice calls, is the most used smartphone feature of all! This means that when it comes to texting, your customers are better at it than you are. Scared? Relax, we got this.
Your text message marketing platform
Let’s start with laying the framework. There are quite a few services out there specifically designed to get your texting campaign off the ground. These SMS and MMS (Multimedia Messaging) applications are immensely helpful. To get you started, here’s a breakdown of some of the services that will enable you to send out messages to your customers in bulk, and track your results.
- bulksms.create.guru provides advanced tools to help small and medium sized businesses track and monitor the reach of their marketing efforts, and send auto-responses, coupons, promotions and more.
Your audience: more than just a list of phone numbers
Who are your customers? They’re not just a phone number, that’s for sure. You might not know it yet, but your plan is to leverage some unique data points about every customer in order to make the text messages they receive more relevant, and in turn, more impactful.
If luck or previous wisdom are on your side, you might already have a list of phone numbers. If not, this is the perfect time to start collecting them. What else should you collect to effectively build an audience? Here are some solid ideas:
- First name (best way to personalize a message)
- Last name (to differentiate between duplicate first names)
- Email (to cross reference with other lists you might be managing)
- Location (In case you offer different things to people from different places)
- Main product preference (if applicable – what kind of products or services are they usually interested in?)
Your strategy: what’s the plan?
This topic is too comprehensive for a single section in a single article, but at least we’re giving you a place to start. Your strategy will include answers to the following questions:
What am I trying to achieve?
Are you interested in driving foot traffic into your business? Would you prefer people buying your products or services online, or calling in to schedule an appointment? Every business has its own goals and yours should be carefully defined so that you can really assess if your campaigns are delivering adequate results. In your text message, your goal should be included in your ‘call-to-action’: Asking the customer to do something like “call now” or “click here” or “play dead” (most customers will unfortunately choose the latter).
What can I offer my customers to make things happen?
Let’s face it – a text message is intrusive. If you blast generic content to your customers every week, they will do everything in their power to block you. Blocking is easier said than done, but we’re pretty sure your goal isn’t to get your customers to foam from the mouth and shatter their smartphone on the pavement (unless you are a phone repair man, in which case you’ve just been handed gold). Solution: make sure to always offer something in your text messages. It doesn’t have to be a new offer, but it has to be compelling to a good portion of your audience.
How can I phrase things clearly and concisely?
Learn how to write short sentences. Are you on twitter? Then you’re halfway there. Text messages, especially ones coming from businesses, must. be. brief.
How can I avoid being perceived as a spammer?
A text messaging platform with any self respect will allow you to personalize a message automatically according to its recipient. The most common personalized parameter is, of course, the first name of the person you’re texting to. People are less likely to react negatively to messages that contain their name, so make sure you put it in there.
Taking these points into account, this is what a text message should look like:
first name, clear and concise offer, call to action, link (optional)
Remember: Talk to your customers the way you want to be talked to. Avoid alienating consumers with mass, generic announcements, and instead, keep text messages targeted and relevant.
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