September 2014 - SMS Marketing Blog by ProTexting

After reading our previous blog Top 5 Reasons Why You Should Embrace SMS as Part of Your Marketing Campaign, you may ask yourself “Terrific! But how can I get started with SMS marketing?” Well, we understand your confusion and here are the TOP 3 things you need to do for a SMS marketing campaign. Identify your main objective and goal. The main goal of business is building relationships, not just selling because long term loyal relationships result in increased purchase frequency and ultimately benefit the bottom line. So it is better to have 1,000 fully engaged subscribers than 10,000 coupon seekers in the long term. Reserve a keyword and spread it out! Once you make the wise decision of conducting a SMS marketing campaign, the first thing you need to do is to reserve your keyword, like “INFO”. The keyword is working like a key for customers to open a new world and get exclusive access to your offers. Apart from getting customers opt-in through the keyword, you can also leverage the web sign-up form to capture customers’ information. After identifying your keyword as well as building the web sign-up forms, you need to roll up your sleeves and spread it out, through social media, website, in-store, etc. Build stronger relationships by using SMS marketingbest practices. “Mobile marketing is really about expanding and deepening your existing customer relationships”, said Kalin Kassabov, CEO of ProTexting. As a marketer, no matter what marketing tactics you are using, you always need to remember your main goal: focus on your customers and build long term relationships. Understanding your customers’ needs and wants will always guide the direction of your marketing strategy. As the direct touch point, your text messages are pretty vital to your customer’s opt-out decision making. The principal of “customers come first” reflects every aspect of the text message etiquette: o Relevancy: The message needs to add value to the customer. If the text message is not as relevant to recipients, the opt-out rate would be higher, which you should avoid anyway. You can decide how relevant your message is based on your customers’ previous feedback and successful campaigns and offers and therefore foster trust and loyalty in return. o Length: “Less is more” also works for SMS marketing. Keep in mind that text is better fit in one message and keep the content clear and short. A text message should be between 105 and 145 characters as it is easier to read. Another good practice to engage your customers is to include a link in your message, especially when sending a media file (photo or video). Since MMS has a lot of limitations for size and quality, we always recommend to send photo or video via short URLs, which also provides great reports on clicks. o Frequency: The frequency depends on different types of SMS marketing campaigns and different industries. But as a general rule, an average of one message per week is a good practice. However based your industry, you may want to send more messages to your customers. For instance, if you are in food or entertainment industry, you might double it to two messages per week to constantly engage your customers. But also keep in mind the relevancy etiquette we mentioned above. o Timing: In marketing, to some extent, timing is everything. It is all about delivering the right message through the right tools at the right time. That is why Near Field Communication (NFC) is so popular nowadays. Based on previous customer feedback and customer behavior, you will know when is the best time to roll out your SMS campaigns. Generally avoid sending out text messages late at night or early in the morning so you don’t disturb your customers. Alright, now you may have a better understanding of how you can get started with SMS marketing! So leverage text messaging and get started to create brand awareness, build a strong loyal relationship with your current customers and acquired new customers and finally increase your return on investment! Reference: http://www.womansday.com/life/etiquette-manners/texting-etiquette http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/173487/best-sms-practices-does-your-customer-really-want.html