People check their phones 160 times a day on average. That’s just one reason SMS marketing no longer stinks.

46 percent of people tell us they check their phones as soon as they wake up. Mobile phones are always accessible and ready to be used to find information or keep up to date on social media. Moreover, emails open at a rate of just 20 percent compared to 98 percent for texts.

Only mobile-optimized ads make it into consumers’ inboxes, so mobile-optimized ads work. This is the only way to avoid the noise and reap the benefits. There’s a misconception that SMS marketing is more regulated than email marketing, so most of the online marketing community laughs at the idea. But that’s a myth.

Watered-down mobile marketing techniques cost you prospective clients, revenue, and conversions. Meanwhile, SMS marketing lies in wait in the background, ready for you to take advantage of it. Here’s why (and how) SMS marketing should be revisited to increase revenue.

Advantages of SMS Marketing

Do you think Instagram has good engagement numbers? You’ll be surprised at what text messages get.

1. Texting Has The Best Engagement Rate of Any Marketing Medium

A text message is almost always read immediately after sending, unlike emails that can sit unread for days or phone calls that go unanswered. Email open rates are comparatively low, as we already discussed. A CTR of 2% is even worse for PPC advertising. In summary, SMS marketing is undervalued and underappreciated.

Despite this, no great thing comes without a price. Sending unsolicited messages with text-message marketing is neither ethical nor legal. You need a written opt-in.

The good news is that most text marketing services allow customers to opt directly in or out from their mobile devices. Customers are able to opt in to a brand’s text marketing list using Attentive patent-pending “two-tap” technology directly through their mobile website, social media, or other digital channels.

With one tap, a message will populate in their message inbox. Upon sending the pre-populated text message, opt-in is completed and a welcome message is sent.

2. It’s Trackable

You can manage countless texting campaigns from your desktop using countless platforms. Invest in a solution that gives you access to detailed analytics that allow you to track each step in the conversion process, beginning with the initial delivery and opening.

3. You Can Leverage Interactive Content

It takes just a few seconds for your recipients to provide feedback by responding to your mobile message or clicking a link. You can deliver information quickly and effectively with simple, quick messages that link subscribers to your website.

4. Immediate Delivery

Mobile marketing is generally fast. Your message is immediately sent once you click “send.”. Within minutes, you can set up a texting campaign and have hundreds of clicks

5. Add a Personal Touch

You can personalize a text message that you send via your mobile device in an informal manner. Banana Republic, for instance, often sends texts that include the words “friends” and “your.”

One of my favorite techniques for driving engagement is to use words such as “you” and “I”. The Banana Republic also does an excellent job of tapping into local events that are relevant to the recipient.

See? With SMS, the possibilities are endless.

Personalized messages, fun games where users can win coupons, and tracking tools are all available to you.

The Basic Components of SMS Marketing

SMS campaigns typically consist of a keyword and a short code. Here’s an example:

Text “POPCORN” to 555555 for our weekly list of flavors!

In the message, the keyword “POPCORN” is placed.

“555555” is the short code that goes in the recipient box.

When a customer sends you that message, they are “opting in.”. It’s that simple. You can do a few different things from there. Follow up with them and tell them what to expect next with an automated reply. Alternatively, you can simply put them on a list and allow them to receive additional texts over time.

Customers can opt-in in other ways as well. Give them the opportunity to check a box on the order form or submit their phone numbers online. It is necessary to confirm numbers received via the last method, however, since customers may enter them incorrectly.

Therefore, you must confirm their participation with another message before adding them to the texting campaign. You could, for example, send. When customers opt in, you can also send them sub-keywords you would like them to use.

If the subscriber sends the phrase Hours, for example, it could trigger an automated text with business hours, and if the subscriber sends the phrase Stop, the subscriber will be removed from the list.

Allowing customers to use sub-keywords gives them a way to interact with your business. It also enables them to opt-out of your texting campaign if they wish to stop receiving messages. Once you’ve got the basics down, you can tap into creative ideas.

SMS Marketing Strategies to Try

There are different ways to text via mobile devices. It should be fairly familiar to you if you have already run social media promotions and contests. You can, for instance, send coupons, drive traffic, or engage people through games. The following are some of the best potential uses for SMS marketing.

1. Coupons and Exclusive Deals

Create unique coupon codes to prevent non-subscribers from taking advantage of your deal. People would have to subscribe to save that way.

2. Use Drip Campaigns 

A drip campaign is a series of automated messages sent based on specific factors, such as how long a customer has been a customer. This is just another form of marketing automation.

Depending on an individual’s status, triggers or tailored responses can be created. You can, for instance, send a subscriber a coupon for 5 percent off immediately following sign-up, a coupon for 10 percent off after three weeks, and a coupon for 20 percent off after two months.

There is a potential bonus for those who stick around for a long time. Thus, you’re enticing the desired action. The best part is that you can schedule them to run automatically. Once a customer signs up or opts in, one will be sent. This way, you don’t need to send individual messages.

3. Poll Your Customers

With polls, your customers can text different keywords to vote. Many services allow you to run polls over a period of time and view the results from a dashboard. In retrospect, these seem quite simple.

The content is interesting, however.

Using the results on your own, you can improve your operations. Utilize unique, proprietary information to create blog and social content using the results. Additionally, people who left an answer will want to learn the results and may even help share them with you.

4. Run a Sweepstakes Contest

By texting a keyword, customers can sign up for sweepstakes.

A standard marketing tactic, once again.

You can select a few winners from everyone who participates. Another option is to award small prizes to everyone who texts your keyword. In fact, it’s a great way to cross-promote.

SMS Marketing Tip #5. Send Photos and Videos

 You can also send pictures and videos in addition to actual text SMS messages.

Let me explain.

Let’s say you wanted to send a preview of an eBook or another image-style call to action. Here’s an example I created to show what’s possible in just a few minutes. Do you want to create this type of marketing message? I’ll show you how a bit later in this piece.

Use Facebook to Grow Your SMS List

Use multiple channels to segment subscribers instead of putting all your eggs in one basket. Facebook Ads and SMS are excellent on their own. Using them together can make them even more powerful. You may want to consider Facebook’s lead ads for SMS campaigns.

In order to build up a large subscriber base, lead ads are great for collecting data and information. Here’s how to get started. You can create an ad in Facebook Ads Manager by

selecting lead generation as your objective. To set up an ad and collect phone numbers, go to the lead form option after you’ve chosen your target audience, budget, and placements.

Using the new form, you avoid bombarding the user with a large number of fields. Rather than just one step, they are greeted with several. Nice, huh?

You can now collect phone numbers instantly after configuring your settings. Your first SMS campaign is almost ready to get started.

How to Automate SMS Marketing

As we’re working smarter rather than harder, I suggest automating the SMS marketing process.

You save precious time by automating marketing. You don’t have to export and import lead data manually, for example. You can quickly automate a process by using a tool like Zapier.

So if you get a few people submitting phone numbers in your Facebook lead ads, you can send them directly to your CRM, your messaging platform, and even various SMS marketing platforms. All at the same time!

So if you get a few people submitting phone numbers in your Facebook lead ads, you can send them directly to your CRM, your messaging platform, and even various SMS marketing platforms. All at the same time!

Conclusion

Let’s face it: SMS marketing has the potential to be a bit annoying. Over the past couple of years, it has evolved tremendously.

Today, people are more attached to their phones than ever, so SMS marketing allows you to reach them directly. Once they opt-in, they will never miss another update or offer from your company.

Even better if you send personalized SMS to your recipient!

Use an SMS app to send coupons, conduct surveys, run sweepstakes, send photos, and drive sales. Options are endless. Watch your ROI grow by being creative with your text offers.

Increase Your Outreach With Damex Digital!

As with all things, learning to create SMS Marketing strategy and using them to their fullest takes time. Precious time which you may not have due to other matters regarding your business, family or maybe you wish to use that time to produce more content, whatever the reason maybe. 

The shortage of time has resulted in most people neglecting or completely abandoning the idea of developing a comprehensive SMS Marketing strategy and optimizing their content based on that strategy.

The mistake they make is to think that they will attract customers as long as they put out their product in the market. They expect the customers to come to the.

That’s a huge mistake. Most people who do this either do not have a good sense of business or are just starting their business as such do not have the know-how’s.

You don’t wait for customers to come, you need to be proactive and attract your potential customers.

If you lack the time to develop a SMS marketing strategy from the ground up, by yourself, you should hire professionals to do it for you! Damex Digital is a professional digital marketing agency based in Smithers, Canada providing comprehensive solutions to all your digital marketing problems.

With us you get highly-skilled, professional strategy developers managing all aspects of your content roadmap and optimization. Leave the SEO and content optimization to us, while you take care of other matters pertaining to your business.

Get higher ROI, boost your conversion rates and increase your revenue with professional Digital Marketing services by Damex Digital!