Reaching a target audience is a top priority for businesses around the globe. However, while many companies struggle at this, others excel. One differentiating factor is marketing.
Having the right marketing strategy can make all the difference. Without the right marketing plan in place, your business may struggle to make sales. While there are several marketing tactics to consider, SMS marketing can be one of the most beneficial. It involves reaching your target audience on their cell phones, which is more of a direct form of communication.
In this post, we’ll define SMS marketing, discuss its benefits, and explain some best practices to help your business succeed.
What is SMS Marketing?
SMS marketing involves marketing tactics used via text messaging. Similar to an email list, customers can join a text messaging service that sends them promotional messages from a business. It’s an opt-in marketing plan that involves subscribing to the text service. Organizations use SMS marketing to announce special deals, ask customers to take surveys, or offer personalized promotions.
Benefits of SMS Marketing
SMS marketing can do wonders for your customer engagement efforts. Take a look at the many benefits of SMS marketing below:
Customers can opt-in and opt-out
People hate it when they feel a business has contacted them without consent. If this happens to you, the chances of buying anything from that organization are low. With this idea in mind, SMS marketing allows customers to opt in and out, meaning they have to subscribe to the texting service to get messages. Customers also get the option to opt out whenever they want, meaning they will no longer receive the texts. This feature allows businesses to only target customers who are interested in their offerings.
Fast engagement
SMS marketing is a very quick way to reach your target audience. Unlike texts or social media posts, customers tend to read text messages much sooner. Additionally, these messages are usually shorter to increase the chance of the viewer reading the entire message.
Wide reach
This form of marketing also casts a wide net over your customer base. That’s because nearly everyone has a cell phone these days. Furthermore, people tend to read promotional texts before promotions on other channels, such as email. Texts also seem to be more urgent, increasing the chance of customers opening and engaging with them.
SMS Marketing Best Practices
While it’s easy to understand the importance of SMS marketing, finding success with these tactics is a bit more challenging.
Take a look at the following SMS marketing best practices to help you excel in this process:
Get a clear consent to send texts
People hate getting bombarded with promotional messaging, even if it’s from a company they like. However, getting these texts without giving consent is something they hate even more. Just like email marketing, SMS marketing requires a transparent opt-in from the customer. Try asking for this consent on your website or other channels, then send them a text confirmation to ensure they want to subscribe.
Identify yourself
If a customer signs up for texting alerts, they may receive these messages from a number they don’t recognize. That said, make sure to identify yourself in the first text. This limits the chance of them removing the message and deleting the number.
