In a mobile-first world, engaging with your customers has never been easier. SMS marketing is one of the most powerful marketing tools, and thankfully, one of the least disruptive channels for businesses looking to communicate with their customers about their products or services.
While SMS is sometimes known as a “boring”, “traditional” medium, it is by no means dead. If used to communicate the right message at the right time, SMS marketing can certainly take your business to new heights.
Considering that almost every consumer owns a mobile device, businesses constantly need to adjust their SMS approach to reflect their customers’ ever-changing needs. In the UK, SMS is the fastest growing marketing channel. They experience an open rate of 95 percent, meaning that consumers agree to opt in to SMS conversations because of the convenience it offers. Consumers in Australia feel much the same when comparing the open rates between SMS and email – a whopping 94 percent in comparison to email’s 32.4 percent. Another interesting stat is that in India, a study found that “80% of people are currently using texting for business”. This is a major advantage for both B2C and B2B businesses looking to engage with their customers in an affordable, effortless manner.
These stats are clear indications that international markets are thriving in the SMS space simply because they know and understand their customers’ needs. So, with saying that, here are a few tips to help improve your SMS marketing strategy to successfully compete against other marketing tools:
No matter the reason behind your conversations, the type of content you share, and the number of relevant texts you send can either pull customers towards you or steer them away from you. According to this article, “three or more texts to your customers can result in as much as a 328% increase in conversions”. If you’ve analyzed your customers’ behaviors and the market, and know exactly what your target audience wants and when you’ll be able to experience a massive boost in SMS action and interactions. Each industry is different, so you need to do your research to know when customers react better to your messages. You can message your customers at the most popular times, and based on those results, keep testing and monitoring your conversions to see whether or not your existing strategy is effective.
An SMS marketing campaign needs to have a purpose. For instance, you might want to increase brand awareness, drive more traffic to your website, or convert more deals. So, you need to optimize your content to achieve that specific interaction or goal. These goals also need to provide your customers with an incentive to benefit from. So, if you’re instructing your customers, make it easy and painless.
You do not have to limit your characters to 160 characters when you’re working with a bulk SMS tool such as Clickatell’s SMS Platform. Our SMS gateway and API allows you to send long-form messages. However, you still want to be able to keep your messages short to encourage people to read them. You can also link your messages to incentives, especially when you start seeing how people react to your messages. It is absolutely necessary to track your campaign results using analytical tools, and, over time, you can run A/B testing to monitor reactions to different types of messages using a standard or personalized approach.
Regardless of the type of customer, you’re speaking to and the fact that you’re sending out bulk SMS messages to reach your customers, new-age marketing encourages personalization. Customers want to feel as though you’re reaching out to them on a personal level. When you go the extra mile to focus on the messaging details, you’ll see a spike in brand engagement and, hopefully, an increase in sales. By utilizing surveys and feedback tools to understand your customers better, it will reflect in your analytics. And the beauty of our SMS Platform is that you can personalize your messages even though you’re sending out in bulk. When you send customers content according to their interests and needs, it’ll show them that you’ve taken the time to curate and communicate information that only appeals to them.
Much like all marketing tools, results take time. But because SMS offers an instant reaction with minimum delay, we’ve made it easy to change things up in real-time and adjust your strategy according to the feedback you see from your campaigns. In addition to you focusing on increasing your conversion rate, you also need to ensure that your strategy complies with the latest General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), allowing customers to opt-in and out of campaigns as they want. If you have the correct SMS approach, you’ll be able to use this affordable communication solution to boost your marketing efforts and achieve your business objectives. To learn more about SMS Platform and how SMS marketing can add value to your business, test drive your future and sign up today!
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