Are you intrigued to know how businesses use text message art to increase customer engagement? Typically, consumers open 97% of all promotional texts sent to them by businesses. At the same time, nearly 49% of everyday mobile users note that they spend more time on messaging apps than any other applications on their mobile phones.
These trends unravel one thing—text messaging is effective because you engage consumers on a channel that they prefer the most and the odds are that they will read your message even if they are not going to respond. However, your business will only experience this if you know how to leverage the art of text messaging. So, where is the catch? Here is a quick guide on how to leverage the art of text messages to your advantage and improve sales.
Best Practices for Getting the Most Out Of Text Message Marketing
Although consumers are connected to their messaging app most of the time, given that Americans check their phones at least once every ten minutes, they’ll only take action on your SMS alerts if you contact them the right way. This section highlights a skinny on the DO’s of this marketing strategy and the best practices for approaching your next SMS campaign.
Get Consent before You Start
As a marketer or business owner, the law binds you to get express permission from customers before targeting them with SMS marketing campaigns. Even if the consumer gives you the go-ahead to text them, you should still allow them to opt-out of the campaign if they want to.
When seeking permission, give your buyers a full disclosure on the type of SMS messages that they’ll likely receive from your brand. Some buyers may choose to receive certain types of messages and opt-out from the rest—it is up to them to decide.
Short, Intriguing, and Valuable Texts Do the Trick
Unlike emails and direct messages on social media platforms, SMS messages have a character limit of up to 160. That said, there is no room for pointless CTAs or mere rambling. You have to get your message out as clearly and concisely as possible. However, that doesn’t mean that you should ignore certain SMS attributes that create trust in your text messages, such as identifying yourself so that the recipients know who they are talking to.
Most importantly, your messages should be geared towards creating value. Put yourself in the recipient’s shoes. If the drafted text doesn’t seem to add any value to you, it won’t help the customer either. Another practice of creating value in SMS messages is by using easy-to-understand words without grammatical errors or awkward punctuations, whatsoever.
Personalization Will Keep the Conversation Going
You probably know the importance of buyer segmentation if you’ve been into email marketing for a while. The same applies to SMS marketing. For example, you would want to use the recipient’s first name in your text opening to prompt them to open the message in the first place. Similarly, you can include pertinent specifics in the text, such as the recipient’s location to forge a close relationship that will even prompt the subscriber to add your business number to their favorite contacts list.
The best thing is that you don’t have to do all this manually. Take advantage of an innovative SMS marketing tool that will help you segment buyers on your contact list on the go, and target them with personalized messages.
Do You Have an Automated Workflow? Add Text Marketing to It
Automated text messaging often yields the best results as opposed to stand-alone SMS campaigns, especially when it comes to creating customer engagement and greater traction. So, if you have an automated workflow in your other marketing strategies, such as email campaigns, don’t hesitate to include text messages too.
Let’s take shopping cart abandonment as a use case to put this into better perspective. Here is how it works in an automated setting.
- A buyer browses your website but abandons the cart just before they check-out
- An automated email gets sent an hour later to remind the buyer of the abandoned cart
- A second automated email gets sent 24 hours later as a reminder
An automated SMS alert steps in as the final communication channel in case the buyer missed the two emails
When you compare the delivery rates of emails and SMS messages, it’s right to assume that the buyer will likely get the last message and take action on the abandoned cart. This strategy can work in any automated workflow and not just emails alone.
Add Call-to-Actions (CTAs) to Your Texts
The main goal of SMS marketing is to drive customer engagement and stimulate sales in the process. CTAs are an excellent way of furthering this goal because they prompt the customer to interact with the message and likely respond to them.
Here are some examples of CTAs to include in your SMS campaigns.
Get a Discount
Asking the recipient to click a link in the message to get a discount is a sure way of creating engagement instead of persuading them to buy directly. However, this CTA will be more effective if you target people who routinely buy certain products.
Text to Win
Customers are amazed by simple gifts and giveaways. They will do anything, including signing up to your SMS list just to increase their chances of getting the goodies. In that context, this CTA will do the trick and prompt them to give consent for future SMS updates.
Your Current Customers Want Attention Too
Your current customer in this context is not a first-time buyer. It includes a person who is loyal to your business, buys constantly, and doesn’t hesitate to recommend your products and services to other people. An effective SMS marketing strategy includes channeling extra resources and time to this circle to compliment your overall SMS marketing strategy. Moreover, in most cases, you already have the express consent of these people to contact them via text.
So how do you make good use of current customers? They can be your basis for collecting trends and insights into the overall SMS marketing strategy. For instance, you can send them detailed SMS polls as opposed to prospects that you’re contacting for the first time. The more you keep this group engaged, the more they’ll stay on your SMS list.
Do It at the Right Time
It takes your target audience an average of three minutes to open and read your text message, but only if you send it at the right time. With that in mind, it will help if you don’t intrude on the recipient’s privacy by sending a text message either too early in the morning or late at the night. The standard time for sending promotional text messages to consumers is between 8 am and 9 pm, during workdays.
However, you can customize SMS timing for every individual customer, especially if you know their needs at hand. For instance, a person who responds to most of your texts at night will likely be happy if you engage them in the future during this time.
Take Advantage of These SMS Abilities to Boost Sales
You already understand the best practices for SMS marketing. These practices will help you maintain texting consent from consumers and keep them on the SMS list for the longest time possible. But what if you want to leverage the same and increase sales? Pay attention to these SMS message capabilities.
Gather Customer Feedback through SMS
SMS messaging gives you an opportunity to interact with customers when they are most engaged. It can either be during or after a purchase, especially if they give you express consent. You can incentivize buyers to rate their experience in your store and use this information to streamline various touchpoints, which will in return boost sales.
Promote Cyclical Customer Purchases
With a powerful SMS marketing tool, you can target a specific segment of customers who frequently buy certain products or services from your store. Say the customer buys a product every month. You can personalize a monthly text message with a discounted rate to persuade them to keep on buying from your store.
Offer Real-Time Customer Support
The average consumer expects you to respond to their concerns within 24 hours of complaint. With text messaging, you can do that in a matter of minutes, not hours, and even get a response back. How? Your customer care team can engage buyers anytime, from anywhere. The process even gets easier and more effective if you have an automated SMS workflow in place.
No Idea on How or Where to Start? Do This
It’s evident that you can benefit from SMS marketing in many ways, regardless of your business size, niche, or industry. You only need to borrow from this guide and you’re good to go. Even better, you can get an innovative SMS marketing tool that automates the redundant tasks, such as scheduling texts as you focus on other high-value tasks, such as personalizing text drafts.
