6 Ways to Boost Your Text Message Marketing Results

While tweets, snaps, and social media sharing remain in the limelight, instant messages remain the most popular form of instant messaging. An estimated 12 text messages are sent for every message sent on the world’s biggest social media site. Other benefits of text messages include the fact they reach people who have cell phones that aren’t smartphones and tend to be opened quickly. Here are six ways to boost your text message marketing results.

Segment Your Audience

You need to tailor your message to each audience segment. One of the great things about SMS marketing is that the results can be easily monitored and analyzed. Try to know as much as you can about your customers by using a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool. This will allow you to analyze things like location-based demographics and purchase history. You’ll then be able to craft a message relevant to the audience and increase your conversion rates and retention rates as well.

Once you’ve created your personalized messages, send them to each different segment. But remember to consider other factors as well when doing so since different demographics may have different spending habits. Conversely, blasting the same message to your entire database risks alienating customers. Nor will you see the same return on investment as you would if you sent a tailored message to smaller groups. For example, a young adult is rarely going to buy products aimed at retirees and may block you if you continue to prove you don’t understand them.

Write Clear Messages

You don’t have a lot of characters to express yourself, so it’s better to do less with more if you can. Messages must be clear and concise, containing all the relevant information and, ideally, nothing else. To ensure that the message is understood, avoid abbreviations and emoticons.

Quit the Open-Ended Campaigns

Open-ended campaigns are less effective than text message marketing with an expiration date. If they know the sale or coupon expires, they’re actually more likely to act upon it assuming they have all the necessary information. Then there’s the fact that when customers know a deal has an end, they won’t be angry when they try to buy and find out the sale is over.

Send Triggered Message

Triggered message are automatic messages that are sent in the case of an action or inaction. For instance, if someone visited your online shop and abandoned their cart just before completing their transaction, then that would be a good time to send them a triggered text either as a reminder or to encourage them to complete their order. Or you could send triggered texts to clients after they stopped making purchases after a set period of time. You could also add a personalized coupon offer to sweeten the deal.

Get the Timing Right

Timing is critical when it comes to SMS marketing. SMS tends to be most effective in the moment since the average person opens them within three minutes of receiving them. Send the text messages that offer a discount on dinner shortly before they leave for work, not early in the morning. If you’re opening a new store, send the announcement out as your customers start their daily shopping.
Text messages from businesses are considered acceptable between 8 AM and 9 PM. You can use data analysis to narrow down the ideal timing for your messages even further.

Do not Irritate your Clients

Make sure that you follow proper etiquette and follow privacy rules when texting your prospective clients. You have to make sure that you have consent to send them messages and you also have to make sure that your sender information is visible.

Also, if you want to keep unsubscribe rates at a minimum, try to be consistent with your messaging. Don’t leave your clients hanging for months then send them a text out of the blue. You should always try to provide something of value with your text, but you also have to text them often enough so that they can actually remember you.

Use Call-to-Action Buttons

Call to action buttons increase the engagement with text messages. They can also help you share information when you can’t get it all down in as few characters as possible.

For example, a call to action button that says “click here” lets you share a link with a map or your website that has more information. You can use text messages to share coupon codes with the CTA “show this text”. Text to Win is a way to keep customers engaged and verify that they’re still receiving your texts. Text to Vote is a good way to poll your customers on any issue, whether it is prices or product quality. Then there’s the classic “buy now” call to action button; it is an excellent way to get someone who read your promotional text to follow through and buy because you made it easier for them to do so. In every case, make it clear what the call to action does.

Encourage Opt-In Across All Media

One of the best ways to secure phone numbers and permission to send text messages to them is to promote the opt-in for both across all channels. When they sign up with your business, ask for their mobile number and give them an opt-in button to select then and there. Have an SMS opt-in prominently placed on your website? When customers are being checked out by staff, have employees ask if customers want to opt-in to text messages regarding sales and promotions. You can send them text messages to opt-in, as well, though you’ll see a better sign-up rate if there is a clear benefit such as receiving discounts only available to those who receive marketing texts.

Conclusion

Text message marketing is an excellent way to reach any and all of your customers in a timely fashion with a high ROI. Done wrong, and you’ll be blocked as spam by your former customers.