Most Reliable Practices for Successful SMS Marketing Campaign

Posted by Renuka Tewani on March 8th, 2017

One of the hottest trends running in marketing is SMS Marketing services.  SMS services are taking off because mobile phones have become an entrenched part of everybody’s life. Brands are embracing this tool to reach out customers instantly with their offerings. But if done incorrectly, it can send the subscribers to the ‘opt out’ button. And those who did SMS marketing properly have been able to knock it out successfully with high conversion rates and returns.

Facts show that over 7 trillion SMS are sent annually now. SMS campaigns are considered to be an incredibly influential method for marketing and to ensure success SMS Marketing services must be leveraged suitably. It is being adopted by almost every brand from fortune 500 companies, consumer durable companies, Apparels, and footwear, to jewelry brands and more, all are leveraging SMS marketing to expand their market reach and serve their existing customers with exciting offers.

As we are again and again saying that SMS campaigns should be done properly, let’s discuss some tips and best practices for text messages marketing services.

1. Clearly communicate your program: Clearly, communicate information that your subscribers expect. Make sure that your subscribers are aware of the types of messages they are going to receive. They should not be blindsided about what they are going to receive when their first SMS marketing service message arrives. Example, when a customer shows up at some apparel brand and buys some products, customers are asked their phone numbers so that can become registered consumers of that brand and they can receive offers and discounts information via SMS.
2. Make it simple: Your message should be easy to understand and follow so that they can easily opt-in and give you permission to be contacted. Most easy done is getting shortcodes to accomplish the communication.
3. Timing should always be right: This is a key rule, the timing of your text message marketing service is that timing should always be right and never the odd hours that may irritate customers. Also, timing indicates the right day and time to send a particular offer, like if you are running discounts at your store during the weekend then you should run the campaign prior to the weekend to spread maximum awareness and create a reminder in their minds.
4. Provide an exit: Your subscribers should always have an option to opt-out of your marketing campaigns at any time. With every SMS you must add at last the information on how to unsubscribe and stop using your service. This will work opposite for you by adding value to your services.
5. Language Use: Text messages should be generated in a common language that can be understood by all the subscribers and also use text messaging short-hand as sparingly as possible; it can make you look unprofessional.
6. Provide Value: Subscribers will only be interested in your text if it has something valuable to them.  If they have given you permission to text them, then make sure you give them something worth-while in return.
7. Support other mediums: When sending messages don’t forget to mention your other marketing channels of communication like mails and social media. This increases the open rate by 20-30%.
8. Make your Subscriber feel exclusive: Everyone enjoys exclusive offers. Subscribers like it when they are made a part of an exclusive club and their retention rate also rises. Example, mention in your message that if they subscribe they will get customized offers and deals that can’t be found anywhere else.

With these tips in mind, you are ready to launch your SMS marketing campaign successfully. Also, last but not the least never forget to set the frequency of messages that subscribers are going to receive in a day, week or month to avoid any sort of annoyance.