Categories: Marketing

How to Drive Engagement with SMS Marketing

Did you know that 87% of American adults have a cell phone? That means that for you as a business owner, SMS marketing could be the perfect way to reach your audience.

In fact, text message marketing is a great way to interact with both current and future customers. It’s also great to increase your audience’s engagement levels with your brand.

But if you’re not sure where to start, it can seem intimidating. That’s why you should check out this SMS marketing guide we’ve created that will help your business drive engagement.

Check out the tips below.

Timing is Everything

One of the biggest SMS marketing tips is to consider the timing of your messages. As with any marketing campaign, you want to reach as many people as you possibly can.

And with a texting campaign, this means sending your messages at the ideal time. This is because people usually open texts right when they get them.

Make sure you don’t send them too late at night or too early in the morning. If you do, they’ll just pile up with a bunch of other notifications, diminishing your text’s impact.

Instead, try sending your messages during the day on weekdays. This is usually the optimal time for most businesses.

But like with any type of digital marketing, you should do some experimenting. Send your messages at different times and analyze the data. Check out the open rates and click rates. Moreover, you can use SMS CRM to automate text message campaigns, enhance customer engagement and streamline communication.

That way you’ll come to know the best time for your target market.

Always Try to Grow Your List

Many companies have email marketing campaigns and actively try to gather new email addresses. Well, if you’re starting an SMS campaign, the same concept applies. You’ll need phone numbers to send messages to.

You can do this through offline and online channels. When it comes to offline, encourage people to text in for a free offer or a discount. You can display this messaging on posters or other printed materials.

As far as online goes, one of the best ways to gather cell phone numbers is to have opt-in features on your website. On your blog, include a pop-up that asks for their name and phone number.

You can also use this type of feature on your homepage or other popular pages. In no time, you’ll be growing your cell phone list.

Segment Your Audience

Segmenting your audience is an essential SMS marketing tip. If you send the same message to your entire database, a lot of your recipients will feel the message is useless.

Instead, break up your list into different groups and send them specific messages. How you segment is up to you. But a great place to start is by differentiating between current customers and non-customers.

This way, you’re sending the right message to the right recipient. One way to do this is by integrating your messaging service with your CRM.

That way, you’ll have data about your recipient list. This will let you know purchase history and demographics of your texting list will help you segment your list even more.

Keep Things Simple: Another SMS Marketing Tip

One of the biggest mistakes made with text message marketing is making your message too complicated. Instead, keep things simple!

Texts are short. You only get 157 characters to communicate your message, so make every character count.

To achieve this, make sure each message only contains one purpose. Have only one goal per text. Make it very easy for your recipients to understand the purpose of your message.

Identify Yourself

Nothing would be worse than you sending out a message and your recipients having no idea who sent it. To avoid this problem, always identify yourself in your message.

Always include your company name so that people know who’s messaging them. This way, you’ll have a much higher chance of engagement and interaction.

Check out our blog for more helpful marketing tips.

Provide Value

It’s no fun to get a message from a family member or friend that has nothing valuable inside. If they don’t tell you something interesting, important, or funny, what’s the point?

Well, the same is true for SMS marketing. So don’t send a message just for the purpose of sending a message. Instead, tell them about an important product change or alert them about a sale.

Include a CTA

No marketing campaign is complete without a call to action (CTA). Without it, your audience doesn’t know what to do next. You need to guide them down a path with your marketing efforts.

This concept is true for SMS marketing as well. You should always include a CTA.

But keep it simple. You should only have one CTA in your message. Often, this is a link to a landing page or other webpage.

Really give them a good reason to click, like by offering something free or a discount on their next purchase.

For a great example of an effective text campaign, click here to discover more.

Use Link Shortening Services

In text marketing, it’s crucial to take advantage of your limited space. We’ve also talked about how it’s also important to include CTAs in your posts, often in the form of links.

Well, links are often long and tend to take up way too much space. So what should you do?

That’s where a link shortening service comes in. This is a unique software that will take your long link and turn it into a much shorter one that you can use in your message.

Both bit.ly and Google’s link shortening program are great options. These are so nice because it gives you a lot more space to work within your message.

Another added benefit is that your messages will be easier to decipher because they won’t be filled with super long links. It’s a win-win situation!