Text Message Marketing 101
SMS marketing is a marketing approach that allows businesses to send text messages directly to customers or prospective customers to ultimately increase brand awareness and improve their customer engagement. Businesses are using this type of messaging to do everything from promoting sales to sending appointment reminders to announcing new products. This form of marketing has become more popular in recent years because it is fast and results in higher open and response rates than traditional marketing practices.
However, you cannot send these messages just like an average text message. For your prospects and customers to receive these messages, they have “opt-in” via an automated system. After the recipient has opted in, that phone number will be saved to a text message marketing software, allowing you to move forward with sending them SMS messages.
Effective Text Message Marketing Practices
Just as with conventional marketing practices such as prospect emails, SMS marketing isn’t as simple as pressing send. It has the potential to greatly improve your sales, but only if you approach it properly. Unsurprisingly, many of the same principles of effective personal texting apply to successful professional SMS messaging.
To get the most out of text message marketing, your business should:
- Adopt SMS marketing tools/ software
- Identify yourself/ your business in your message
- Personalize your messages as much as possible
- Avoid using slang or emojis that could confuse your customers
- Focus on brevity
- Avoid sales-forward messaging; Keep it conversational
- Include the value proposition in your message
- Include opt-out instructions
- Include a Call-To-Action
- Be strategic with your send times
- Avoid text message inundation
Because text messaging marketing allows you to send important messages straight into the hands of your customers, it is becoming one of the most powerful tools for businesses..
If you want to explore the world of text message marketing, contact Stovall Marketing to help you craft and send the infamous “perfect text.”