SMS marketing is practically exploding. For the reason that it is so simple and effective to use. SMS marketing is working as a way to reach customers through messages. You can send big number of textual messages to customers in order to subscribe, engage in questionnaires and polls, or even sweepstakes contest. Texting is probably best for engagement. When someone sends email, it can be left unread, same goes with phone calls, they can be unanswered. Textual messages are almost always being read quickly. There’s a study which has shown that 95 customers out from 100, read and open SMS in about 3 minutes.
How is SMS marketing working?
Well, there are 2 of the basic components to it, and they are short codes and keyword. For example : text ” tasty icecream ” to 453567 to receive weekly flavour list! The keyword here is ice cream, and it is in the message body, 453567 is shortcode and it’s written into the box of recipient.
If someone sends message to this number that means he opted in to your SMS campaign. You can choose to send them automated responses. Numbers that you receive by this way you need to confirm. Sometimes it can happen that number is entered incorrectly, so before you add someone to campaign you need to confirm participants by sending another message, for example text ” YES ” if you wish to get weekly coupons ”. When customer is inside your campaign, he can also respond back to your messages with sub keywords. For instance, you can put phrase ” hours ” which means they can text you within your business hours, and if they send ” stop ” you will remove them from their list. By doing this customers can be engaged with your business and it gives them opportunity to leave your campaign if they decide not to receive messages anymore. There are so many components of SMS marketing that you could use, doesn’t matter what type of business you have.
You can make a poll for customers. They can vote based on different keyword texting. After polls are finished you can collect all the answers and put them in graph. SMS marketing consists of 6 key elements. First you must create offer that’s valuable and start with it. Then include direct call to action and create sense of urgency. Make that offer exclusive and mention the name of your brand. Create groups which means dividing your customers based on what type of keyword they responded. When you do this you are able to better target coupons and promotions.
If you follow some rules you can maintain happiness of your customers. You got to make sure that customers are aware of opting in. When you advertise shortcode, tell them that they will be added to mail list. Inform your customers that message and data rates may apply. I think that SMS marketing is very powerful way to reach customers. But as we already know, with great power comes big responsibility.
