SMS marketing, or text message marketing, is one of the most effective tools businesses have for reaching their customers. SMS marketing works for small and large businesses alike. But to make sure your campaign is successful, it’s important to follow a few best practices.
1. Identify Your Target Audience
The key to success with an SMS marketing campaign is to be sure you’re sending content to customers who want it. You can use promotional offers and other incentives to persuade potential customers to send you their phone numbers.
As you’re gathering your audience, it’s wise to also select a programmable SMS API. This is an application programming interface: it’s a software solution that lets you send text messages to subscribers without direct human involvement. Most of these interfaces also include analytics to help you see how well your campaign is working.
2. Make Sure Your Customers Opt In
When running an SMS campaign, you absolutely want to avoid any kind of spam! The easiest way to do this is by allowing customers to opt-in. For instance, if someone places an order or makes an appointment, they can decide whether or not they want to receive texts from your business.
It’s also good practice to make it easy for your customers to opt-out if they change their minds. This is easy enough to do; most businesses will include a message telling their customers to simply text “STOP” if they want to stop receiving texts.
3. Decide What Messages To Send
Crafting the right copy is key, but so is deciding what types of messages to send your customers. Some of this depends on your business: if you run a medical clinic, you might send appointment reminders, but if you run a pizza shop, you might text weekly deals.
4. Send Different Content To Different Customer Groups
This is what’s known as “segmenting” your audience. New customers or subscribers typically get different messages than long-time customers, so it’s wise to customize your messages some. For newer customers, you might offer a special discount. For repeat customers, you might consider sending out an invite to a loyalty program or offering exclusive access to a new product or service.
5. Time Your Messages
Timing is key when you’re sending marketing-related messages. Research has indicated that marketing text messages sent on Mondays have the lowest response rate. Keep your customers’ time zones in mind, too. Nobody appreciates being woken up at 2 a.m.!
Similarly, it’s wise to avoid sending texts during rush hour. During standard commuting times, people will be much less likely to be able to engage with a text.
6. Don’t Overdo It
When your customers first sign up for text message communication, assure them that you won’t sell their information and that you won’t spam them with constant texts. Then be sure to stick with it! Some businesses go so far as to let their customers know how often they’ll be contacted. So when a customer first signs up, they may receive a welcome text saying they may hear from the business up to once a week.
Businesses that offer to track or delivery updates may also choose to give customers a heads-up regarding how many messages they’ll receive. For example, if a customer opts in for pizza delivery tracking, the company may note that the customer will receive up to five messages per order.
7. Track Your Campaign Results
Tracking the results of your SMS campaign will help you adjust your strategies as needed and make sure that you’re spending money and resources as effectively as you can. You can choose the specifics of what you track, but many businesses at least track how many total messages are sent, how many of those messages are opened, and how many links are clicked. You also may want to track how many sales, appointments, etc. are made as a direct result of text message marketing.
Closing Remark
Hopefully, you now have a sense of how to craft a successful SMS marketing campaign! Be sure to pay close attention to your campaign’s results so your marketing strategy can grow with your customer base.
