Do a quick look around now and you’ll notice that half of the people around you have their faces buried inside their phones. People are crossing the roads into oncoming traffic totally absorbed in their devices.
Think about that for moment…
If you’re not currently finding ways to reach people on mobile then you are not really in business.
While there are businesses who are pushing a lot of resources into mobile marketing a lot of them are overlooking arguably the most effective mobile marketing strategies available today…Online SMS.
What is online SMS?
Online SMS or online text messaging is an online platform that allows you to send bulk SMS messages to mobile users.
While some might say “why not use your phone?” to these people I say, “really?” when you try online SMS for contacting customers, you’ll never even consider that as an option again.
In 2020 and beyond speed is one of the most powerful advantages you can have in business which is one of the primary reasons you would use an online SMS service over your mobile phone.
In business speed is an essential advantage and fiddling around with your mobile phone to knock out text messages en masse is not a smart idea.
In this article I’ll share 5 ways you can integrate online SMS into your existing marketing campaigns.
1. Have a clear call to action
One of the easiest and most common mistakes with marketing in general is forgetting to tell the reader what to do next, this can be a detailed set of instructions or a simple “call 0800 123 467”.
When it comes to SMS you definitely do not want to miss the call to action because you’re paying for each SMS message and sending an immediate follow up telling the person what to do next may cause a little aggravation.
2. Look for ways to cross promote
Each advertising channel can serve different goals and target different groups of people. Try integrating your SMS campaign into your other marketing channels especially your newsletters, email campaigns, social media page and relevant social media posts, shop windows, flyers, etc.
On the flip side, use your SMS to promote your other channels for example, emails typically get an open rate of only 20% while SMS floats around a massive 97% so if you’ve just sent out an important company newsletter via email then you should follow up with an SMS letting them know that you’ve just sent out some important information, this will virtually guarantee a sharp increase in readership.
This is the same for special promotions, by using SMS to get more eyeballs on your promotions your sales volume will naturally increase.
3. Keep your content unique
While your overall messaging needs to carry the same general fingerprint your content should be unique across all channels. When you’re creating an article people are more willing to spend more time, when you send an SMS they want to know what you have quickly – it’s a faster medium.
Each marketing channel will require a slightly different play.
4. Complement Other Channels
As you work with each marketing channel you’ll develop base metrics that tell give you an idea of how well each campaign is performing and what to expect in future campaigns.
SMS isn’t a channel that you can hammer too often but when you do use it, it’ll produce amazing results which is why if you have a big launch approaching or you really need to drive more sales on a specific campaigns then use SMS to bolster the results by sending out an SMS and letting people know about your launch or special offer
5. Target Frequency of Subscribers’ Sales Texts
As I mentioned above SMS can’t be used like email, sending any more than once per week is a dangerous game in terms of annoying your subscribers so it’s best to use SMS when you’re likely to get the best bang for your buck.
If you have all of your SMS subscribers piled into one massive list then you are severely limited in terms of sending frequency.
However, if you segment people into different groups this allows you to send out more campaigns and deliver highly targeted messaging and offers.
For example if you are a health club just splitting your list up into male and female groups means you can send out 2 SMS campaigns per week instead of one.
Also, it means you can offer female specific promotions and male specific promotions which will increase conversions.