Text Message Marketing

In case you are wondering, the terms text marketing and SMS marketing are interchangeable. SMS stands for short message service and is a more formal way to refer to a text message.

Text message marketing is the use of SMS or text messages to deliver promotional messages to customers and subscribers. Many businesses use text marketing to generate sales, but it can also improve brand awareness, educate subscribers, increase website traffic, or promote a charity or nonprofit organization.

Text message marketing is a relatively simple yet effective process that consists of two primary steps. First, you need to enable your customers or supporters to opt-in to receive promotional messages via SMS or MMS. Second, you’ll need a service to draft and send messages to your subscribers once they’ve signed up. You can also use text message marketing for two-way communication to enable features like digital customer service, which is a popular feature of many business texting services.

Why SMS Marketing Works

SMS marketing services work because they cut through the noise generated by other direct marketing channels. Take these statistics for example:

• 90% of people have a mobile device constantly within reach all day, every day (study by Morgan Stanley)
• 72% of cellphone users check their mobile devices for new messages as soon as they wake up (International Data Corporation)
• 94% of messages are read within three minutes of delivery, compared to a mere 22% open rate for emails (ImpigeMobileStrategy)
• When used for coupon redemption, SMS text marketing produces engagement rates eight times higher than retailers normally achieve via email marketing (Cellit)
• Brands using SMS advertising to support other marketing activities successfully reach 95% of their target audiences (GoMoNews)
• SMS text marketing performs four to five times better than online advertising for creating brand awareness and increasing purchasing intent (Neilsen)
• 44% of consumers prefer offers via SMS compared to email (18%), smartphone apps (11%), and voicemail (8%). (Direct Marketing Association)

An additional advantage that mass text messaging services provide is the ability to reach older-model cellphones. This will work especially well for those businesses that target an older demographic who may not yet be on the smartphone trend. Having the means to reach all generations, without the limitation of a specific device, is a huge key to success.

SMS Marketing Strategies and Tactics

• Send coupons for users to receive exclusive deals
• Start a drip campaign. In the context of coupons, when a user signs up, send them a discount code for an example of 5% off. After a month of being subscribed, send a 10% off coupon, and then a 20% off coupon another 2 months after that.
• Promote an event happening at your store or in an off-site location that your users may be interested in
• Poll customers by letting them cast a vote of what they prefer
• Send photos or videos showcasing new in-store items, an updated restaurant menu or printed flyers to draw users in.

Customer engagement is a tough cookie to crack these days. Between short attention spans and the growing number of distractions all around, it’s difficult to get your messages in front of your target audience.

SMS, when used correctly, cuts through the noise and capture people’s attention in ways that traditional channels (e.g., email, PPC) can’t. According to Gartner, SMS open rates run as high as 98% compared to email’s 20% mark. What’s more, is the data cited by Digital Marketing Magazine indicating 75% of consumers actually prefer to receive promotions via text message.

These numbers tell us that consumers are a lot more receptive to messages they receive via text.

In today’s world, nearly everyone has access to a cell phone… and a smartphone at that! They also spend a significant amount of their time on these devices. Meanwhile, consumers are using smartphones at historic rates. In fact, U.S. consumers now spend five hours per day on their mobile devices.

Three principles of text message marketing

To have a successful text message marketing campaign, there are some guidelines that businesses must follow.

1. Recipients must opt-in to text messaging

The FFC’s Telephone Consumer Protection Act makes it unlawful to send promotional text messages to people unless they have voluntarily communicated their numbers to the sender and agreed to participate in the campaign. In short, you can only target people with text message marketing messages that have given you their number and permission.

So, how do you go about getting people to opt-in?

One really effective way is to entice buyers with exclusive offers. Text-to-win marketing campaigns have yielded some companies up to 4,000 new registered users.

Another excellent opt-in strategy is to host contests. People love free things. Just ask RedBox. The company ran a text in to win campaign offering 10 days of deals where customers won DVD rentals for between 10 cents to $1.50, and the results were astounding – 400,000 customers participated, which means 400,000 new subscribers for RedBox.

2. Timing is vital

The timing of your SMS efforts is crucial.  Avoid those times of the day when people are driving and not able to look at their phones. Mainly, avoid sending messages between 6:30-8:30 a.m. and 4-7 p.m. Other times to beware are those that will wake people up in the middle of the night – this is pushing them to unsubscribe once and for all.

Bottom line? You don’t want to be lighting up a customer’s phone at night or when they are commuting to work.

3. Frequency matters too

In the same light as avoiding times of the day when your SMS marketing messages would be disruptive, you should also consider how often you’re sending text-based promotions and offers – once a week or bi-weekly is a good rule of thumb.

It can quickly become overwhelming if you’re bombarding customers constantly with new offers and other messages.

Here are some other ways to utilize text messages.

Events