If you’re in the call space, chances are, you may already be somewhat familiar with SMS marketing.
SMS marketing can be a great way to grow your business. Small businesses and large businesses alike leverage SMS messaging in order to attract new customers and retain old ones. However, throwing a handful of text messages at leads and hoping for the best, without a SMS marketing strategy, is recipe for failure.
Below are nine reasons why you may want to consider SMS marketing for your business.
1. Increase Engagement Rate
Many businesses are surprised to learn that SMS open rates are often higher compared to email open rates. While emails can get tossed into spam or sit unread in an inbox, SMS messages are almost always read within a few minutes of receipt.
That means that you can reach potential customers more efficiently with SMS than with email. (But just as with email marketing and outbound calls, SMS marketing has laws and regulations around consent as well – it’s still important to ensure compliance!
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First, you must create an opt-in option so that customers can continue receiving messages or choose to stop SMS messages from coming through. The reverse also holds true; customers must also have the option to opt out from receiving messages from you at any time.
Second, your content has to be clear, concise, and engaging. The message should have a clear purpose and action for the recipient to take. This way you can use the high engagement rate to spur customers into taking action, whether that’s to phone in, visit your website, or buy more product.
2. Content can be Easy and Simple
As we’ve covered above, the SMS marketing is a great way to engage with your customers. The other major benefit is that the content itself is fast and easy to write, and can be produced far easier than, say, creating email marketing campaigns in Mailchimp.
Keeping messages to a few hundred characters is ideal in order to convey your messages efficiently. Include a relevant link or phone number and a personalized greeting for best results.
Writing SMS copy is simple and time-efficient. Remember, you’re sending a SMS text message, not writing a mini-story. Keep it brief, connect to customers right away and deliver the intended information or call to action (CTA) in a concise and clear manner.
3. Lead Follow-Up
Getting new leads is a crucial part of any business, and SMS messaging is often used as part of a lead follow-up system. Facebook Leads, for example, is often used as a simple lead generation system. Facebook Leads allows you to post an ad and collect information (including cell phone numbers) from leads filling out your form.
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Your leads are then instantly added to your SMS messaging campaign.
Once you’ve obtained leads (either through generating them yourself or purchasing them), lead engagement platforms such as Pipes.ai are vital in helping ensure they convert through automated lead follow-up services and walking your leads through the sales journey via SMS and call.
4. Gauge Customer Preference
You can collect information from the customers on your SMS campaign by utilizing keywords or keyword polls. During this process, you can pose a question and ask for a response in the form of a keyword.
Example:
“What type of insurance are you most likely to be on the market for in the next 5 years?
- Final expense or life insurance
- Auto insurance
- Home insurance
- Disability insurance
- Critical illness insurance”
This is a way to connect to your customers and get valuable insight into what is important to the consumer of your product.
5. Collect Data
The #1 thing you need in order to ensure you’re properly targeting your audience from start to finish? DATA! (We’re firm believers there’s no such thing as too much consumer data.)
A good engagement platform should have reporting features that provide insights into your SMS marketing campaign performance. Find out the percentage of leads that opened your message, how many engaged with a link within that message, and how many people opted out of the ad campaign.
These metrics allow you to make adjustments to your content or, on a high level, your SMS marketing strategies accordingly. Use the data to identify patterns of what was successful and what areas might need more work. Pipes.ai offers A/B split testing on campaigns, specifically on SMS messages, scripts, and IVRs.
6. Build a Relationship
SMS messages are often perceived as more personal than emails. Sending a text message gives you an informal opportunity to personalize your message and make your customer feel as if you’re speaking directly to them – instead of an obviously pre-written generic email newsletter, for example.
You can use SMS messaging to connect with your customers, build a relationship, and build brand loyalty. You can do this with an authentic voice to your content and by offering value through the messages: insider tips, exclusive discounts or links to other useful information is a great place to start.
7. Deliver Reminders
Depending on what type of business you have, an SMS reminder system could be very helpful. This can be used to re-engage leads that left a webform before completing it, alert clients that their pre-paid account balance is running low, or to inform clients of an upcoming deadline – just a of couple examples of how a business may use SMS marketing as a reminder system.
Automating services like reminders saves you time and energy while delivering value to your customers and help them (re)engage with your service or product.
8. Run Promotions
So you want leads to opt into your SMS ad campaign. But what’s in it for them?
Those customers that join your SMS ad campaign must be offered something valuable in return if you want them to opt in and stay in your SMS campaign list. That’s why it’s often a good idea, if possible, to use SMS as a platform to run sales and promotions for your business.
Loyal customers that continue to receive and respond to SMS messages can be rewarded with discounts, account credits, or giveaways. You should show them that it’s worth being part of the exclusive group that receives SMS messages because they get access to advantages other customers may not get (i.e. deliver value).
9. Build a Brand
Individual messaging matters of course, but your overarching brand image and brand recognition arguably is just as important. Your unique brand is what distinguishes you from the competition. SMS marketing is just another way you can further develop your brand messaging and image.
Your SMS content should show why your brand is unique and what it can offer that others cannot, or what pain point it solves that makes your customers’ lives easier.
Your brand should be cohesive among all types of marketing that you do. SMS is a huge part of that.
