Your business has access to a powerful marketing tool. There’s a strong possibility you’re not making use of it.
Or at the very least, you’re not using it as effectively as you could be. Text message marketing, commonly known as SMS marketing, is that tool.
The text message marketing industry is expanding, according to Grandview Research. SMS spending is expected to expand at a rate of more than 20% annually through 2025-according to Grandview.
Text marketing is gaining traction among your competition. Are you one of them?
Continue reading to find out what SMS marketing can accomplish for your company and how to use it to reach and convert your target audiences.
What are the benefits of text message marketing?
There are numerous advantages to text message marketing, but two stick out in particular for businesses and marketers that are dubious.
First and foremost, it is incredibly cost-effective. According to Anthem Business Software, text messaging marketing costs are often pennies per message.
It is a fraction of the expense of certain other methods of paid digital marketing; which may run into hundreds of dollars every day.
Second, SMS marketing has a substantially greater conversion rate than traditional marketing methods. Within five minutes, the great majority of prospects receive communications, and one-third of them click through on relevant offers. Talk about outstanding performance.
How to use text message marketing?
#1 Send Personalized Text Messages
Texting is an excellent medium for sending individualized messages. It is becoming increasingly critical in a market where consumers have become savvy to old-school marketing tactics and are wary of one-size-fits-all sales pitches.
It’s also not just about marketing efficiency. A personalized message can help consumers remember your brand despite being tugged in a thousand different directions.
Always ensure that you create an attractive message for customers.
#2 Deploy Reminders for Events and Appointments
SMS marketing is still effective for ready-to-convert prospects and old or repeated consumers who want to convert again. You can use it to send out targeted event and appointment reminders to ensure that converts follow through on their commitments. If the “event” is an abandoned digital cart, you can even use it to close the transaction eventually.
#3 Send Time-Sensitive, Targeted Promotions
SMS can be useful if you know a certain group of clients buys at a given time of day or week or if you want to promote a limited-time special in your online store. It’s far more successful than promotional emails at crunch time because many prospects don’t see them until it’s too late (or ever).
Combine unique or exclusive pricing for recipients with time-sensitive text promotions. There’s nothing quite like obtaining a deal that a few other people have. The more exclusives you provide, the more likely your prospects are to read your marketing texts when they arrive.
That’s exactly what geofenced SMS targeting does. You can use it to send targeted marketing messages to customers in particular locations, such as a neighborhood where you have a retail shop or even inside the store. You’ll convert more consumers and boost overall revenue per transaction by reaching out to more potential customers when and where they’re making purchasing decisions and sending laser-targeted messages with exclusive pricing.
#4 Always Target Key Decision-Makers (And Know When They Receive the Message)
Are you tired of sending targeted marketing messages to the wrong people? SMS marketing allows you to communicate with the people who make purchasing decisions. That’s especially true in B2B sales when a phone number can mean the difference between a closed transaction and a missed opportunity.
#5 Analyze the Effectiveness of Your Marketing
Do you know who is watching your TV commercials rather than skipping them?
Obviously not. That type of sophisticated marketing analysis is not available on television.
SMS marketing is one of them. You can observe who opens your messages, clicks through, and converts using the built-in analytics in your marketing suite. That’s the kind of data you’ll need to make well-informed marketing selections.
#6 Secure Payment Requests and Reminders
SMS is a great way to inform pay-later customers that they have a new bill and gently remind them to pay it.
Consider whether or not to include a direct payment link for security considerations. Clients’ carriers may mark this as spam, and many will never utilize it. However, you can surely add easy bill payment instructions in your texts.
#7 Customer feedback (and feedback from people who haven’t yet converted) is a great place to start.
SMS messaging makes it simple to collect feedback from customers and prospects regarding their interactions with your company. They are not required to create an account or complete a lengthy form. It’s often as easy as typing “yes” or “no” in response to a few basic questions.
#8 Send exclusive offers
People like to feel special, and there’s no better way to make them feel special than by inviting them to join an exclusive club. It can be accomplished by promoting special offers via SMS which is not advertised in any other marketing channel or on your website.
According to research in Marketing Profs, sending your audience these special offers via SMS is known as “positive disruption.” You see, your text is interfering with your audience’s activity, yet it provides helpful information that they will value.
Understand SMS marketing with Domino’s case study:
Domino’s Pizza has a global network of company-owned and franchised locations. One of its franchisees is located adjacent to a 25,000-student university in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The teams did focus groups to determine the best technique for reaching as many students as possible. According to the research, the best location to promote their pizza to reach their target demographic was on Facebook. As a result, they decided to promote their Facebook page during significant student activities, such as basketball games, on the court. However, they discovered that this technique did not generate the desired results, because most individuals do not bring pens or notepads to the games, and they do not use their smartphones to access the website from the games.
Instead, Domino’s opted for text messaging. They reasoned that after the game, the crowd would analyze the text and go to Domino’s Facebook page, so they designed a new stadium ad with a free pizza offer for everyone who texted 49ER to 313131. They then texted anyone who texted the code a follow-up SMS. Their reaction was as follows:
Join our Facebook group at UNCCDominos.com and submit a message (I GOT A TEXT) to receive a voucher for a FREE pizza. Reply STOP 49ER 2 Optout.”
The end outcome was outstanding-almost a tenth of the 3,000 students at the game texted within minutes of seeing the commercial. Plus, by the end of the night, another 5% had done so. There were roughly 600 opt-ins as a result of this. By the morning, approximately 350 students had joined Domino’s Facebook group, and virtually all of them had taken advantage of the offer. This experiment confirmed that texting outperformed just displaying a URL.
Domino’s began offering discounted pizzas. There were 100 to 200 opt-ins for every ad they ran, and nearly all of these people joined the Facebook group to obtain the deal.
By the conclusion of the semester, Domino’s had accumulated over 2,000 Facebook fans.
In addition, they increased their SMS marketing list by approximately 850 students. They also continued to send discounted pizza offers to members of their Facebook group through SMS. One of these messages was:
For the playoffs; 49er fans will get 50% OFF ALL MENU PRICE PIZZAS & Bread Sides ALL DAY TODAY! a discount code (FACE50).
Domino’s used discount codes to evaluate the effectiveness of its SMS marketing efforts. They discovered that each campaign had a redemption rate of 20% to 25%, or roughly 500 pupils, resulting in an additional 125 orders. Domino’s decided to keep SMS as a vital element of their marketing strategy after comparing these outcomes to the cost of only $25.
Next Steps:
SMS is a relatively new and rapidly expanding marketing communication tool. You can engage your target audience in different ways to increase sales and loyalty. The first step is to create an account with an SMS service that you can utilize for marketing purposes. Create and implement any of these techniques after including an SMS opt-in on your website, and other marketing deliverables.
Oh wait, here is one more tip; Encourage your audience to “like” your Facebook and other social media pages in each SMS message. You may raise the sales and your fan base.
Takeaway:
Text message marketing is a powerful tool for reaching out to prospects wherever they are. As long as they have their phones on them, that is.
It’s also adaptable. It allows you to send customized reminders, time-sensitive and geo-targeted promotions, customer and prospect feedback, and payment reminders and requests, among other things. The only limit to SMS marketing’s potential is your imagination. Using the best text message marketing trick, you can get exceptional results in no time!
