With the modern power of mobile phones, text messaging can be one way to reach your customers. You read that right – it’s not only an avenue to chat with your friends but also one marketing strategy that offers convenience and cost-effectiveness.
Since most of your target market owns cell phones and sends and receives messages, text message marketing is more engaging than email or social media. Moreover, text messaging could be the saving strategy of your business, so it’s best to know the best ways you could make the most out of such a campaign:
What is Text Message Marketing?
When you send your customers business promotions, sales, news, and other relevant information through text messages, that’s what you call SMS or text message marketing. This kind of marketing campaign is more personal, since you send time-sensitive offers and alerts to the personal numbers of your customers (as long as they’ve consented to receive such messages).
You could also customize your messages and recipients. You could opt to send bulk messages to a large group of customers if you want to send in urgent information or send individualized content.
In addition, text messages allow you to connect with your consumers in a way that social media advertisements and email marketing cannot. Consumers can hide unwanted ads easily, but consented text messages bypass these hindrances and go directly to their phones. Thus, you can expect to connect with customers with SMS marketing on a more personal level.
How Does Text Message Marketing Work?
Text message marketing needs a database of customers’ names and cell phone numbers. It could even require other information like geographic area and customer interests. You may think that text message marketing is generalized, but this marketing campaign functions much like Facebook ads.
With the information in your database, the text messages will target customers within a specific area based on their age and interests – much like how you do online marketing! You can get as specific as you want, since you meet your customers where they are (on their cell phones.) Thus, the more customer information you have, your text message campaign will be more specific.
Why is this Marketing Campaign Effective?
Text message marketing is not only customizable, but it can also strengthen customer loyalty, engagement, and interaction:
Text Marketing Strengthens Customer Loyalty
The best thing about sending personalized content is that it helps you build a stronger bond with your customers than sending emailed messages. Moreover, since your database keeps track of their interests, your messages will contain business offers that are of value to your customers. Doing so keeps them in your business loop, and they ultimately become loyal repeat customers.
Text Marketing Boosts Customer Engagement
Email messages tend to be lost in all the clutters of the email sections in primary, social, or even promotions. However, this doesn’t happen with text messages. Since texts aren’t divided into sections, your customers will see your text.
Also, a 2022 study found that 95% of consumers who receive business texts read the messages and even respond within three minutes. Text messages are a more direct route than emails, so you can be assured that your text messages have a better chance of being opened and read.
Text Marketing Improves Customer Interaction
Personalized messages aren’t the only great thing about texts, since you can always make your content engaging! You can pose your messages as surveys or polls to encourage customers to read more closely and reply. With this, you push your customers to participate actively in your business.
You could also include entertaining videos or images that promote your business. This will help cement your business in your consumers’ minds and differentiate it from other businesses.
What Are the Best Uses and Practices?
Subscribing to a text messaging campaign differs from using it effectively and successfully. For you to make the most out of such, you need to consider customer consent to avoid getting penalized and never go overboard with your messaging:
Get Customer Permission
Before you can start business messages, you must follow the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules to avoid the hefty fine that comes with the privacy penalty. Moreover, you need to get permission from your consumers and check state laws on business text messaging.
The primary law you need to familiarize yourself with is the Telephone Consumer Protection Act passed in Congress in 1991 – mainly used to protect consumer rights against unsolicited text messages. It would help if you also considered the wireless communication industry that governs the SMS industry. Although these procedures may take time and effort, the profits text messaging campaigns bring will be worth it.
Don’t Go Overboard with Your Messages
While sending every promotional piece to your customers is tempting, it’s not best to go overboard. Customers can’t simply ignore texts, and too much influx of messages would tire or bother them. Moreover, this could then result in them withdrawing their consent. In contrast, you should schedule your texts and limit how much you send.
Final Thoughts
Marketing is made more accessible, especially with text messaging to aid you. Overall, you connect with your customers personally using the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of messaging. Ultimately, such makes you run your business effectively with a texting campaign.