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According to data from Klaviyo, ecommerce marketers that are using SMS marketing campaigns as part of their marketing strategy are seeing an average of 2.5% conversion rates on SMS marketing platforms.
SMS marketing works best when used alongside your other marketing strategies. The most effective SMS marketing campaign will go hand in hand with email marketing and other strategies to generate leads and retain customer attention.
SMS marketing is not just about texting customers and hoping they buy something from you. It can achieve way more than that. The direct nature of text messages creates the opportunity to build genuine relationships with your customers.
Understanding the different types of SMS marketing messages will help you make the most out of your SMS marketing software. Your SMS marketing campaign will be more effective overall. Let’s take a closer look at all the ways you can utilize text messages to grow your business.
What is SMS Marketing?
Before we go into the different types of messages you can use for you SMS marketing strategy, let’s first go over what SMS marketing is.
SMS stands for “short message service”. Brands use it to interact with their customers on a more personal level.
SMS campaigns primarily involve text messaging: sending text messages to a specific set of people. You can send a different SMS message to different groups of people depending on what you want to achieve. You can send promotions, updates, news, etc. to customers who have opted in.
When a customer opts in to your SMS marketing messages, they give you their phone number and become SMS subscribers. This allows you to add them to a list and periodically send SMS messages directly to their mobile devices.
SMS marketing is known to be just as effective as email marketing. Text messages tend to be opened more frequently, and they also receive more engagement from SMS subscribers. Because it is an owned channel like email marketing, you have full control over what content you share and who receives it. This means you also control over your customers’ experience. When they sign up using their phone number to become an SMS subscriber, customers expect to receive timely, but non-intrusive updates from you. You have to fine tune your SMS marketing strategy to make sure you are only sending essential messages that are perfectly optimized.
Benefits of SMS Marketing Campaigns
If you’re not yet convinced, we need to talk about some of the benefits of SMS marketing and why you need to integrate SMS marketing into your business strategy.
Sending marketing messages may feel intrusive, but this is not the case because you are only messaging SMS subscribers who have voluntarily given you their phone number. So don’t miss out on this fantastic source of leads.
Even with the rise of social media, SMS has remained an essential part of multi-channel marketing. SMS marketing messages can improve customer relationships, which can translate to an increased ROI in the long run.
Some organizations avoid SMS marketing because they think investing in an SMS marketing program is costly. They mistakenly believe it requires a heavy investment in apps that don’t allow personalized and targeted communication. But any high quality SMS service provider can show you otherwise.
These SMS marketing channels can do more than just create campaigns and give a direct line to your customers’ mobile phones. They can also provide analytics that businesses can use to refine their text message marketing based on results.
SMS marketing software can track meaningful ROI, check delivery rates, and monitor open rates. This effectively dispels the myth that SMS is an impossible marketing channel to track.
Another advantage of text messaging marketing is that you can reach people no matter what mobile device they are using. Whether they are a smartphone or non-smartphone user, you can still send marketing messages to them. An SMS campaign opens up a direct and immediate channel to your most valuable customers.
SMS messages tend to have high click-through rates. They have a read rate of 97% within 15 minutes delivery. This is because a lot of people have their phones with them most of the time. They are more likely to open texts than open their emails. In fact, 45% of SMS campaigns generate a successful return on investment. When combined with social media, email, and other popular channels, this can reach an ROI of 50%.
Speaking of which, SMS marketing tends to work best when combined with these other channels. Although it works great as a standalone channel, you can get even better results by integrating it with your existing marketing channels.
By using text marketing messages, you can even learn more about your customers. Aside from building relationships and actually learning more about them, you can also send surveys via SMS to get direct feedback. Research has shown that 31% of consumers will respond to a survey via text. Their average response time is just a little over 5 minutes.
This is why you should consider using an SMS marketing program. If you are still not using these SMS marketing services to reach your target audience, you are getting left behind by the competition. Increase customer engagement and get ahead of the competition by optimizing your text marketing strategy today.
What are the Types of SMS Marketing?
Promotional SMS Messages
Promotional SMS are meant to increase sales or promote a product. Your goal is to build brand awareness and develop some hype over your newest offerings. You can go for one-off SMS campaigns or develop larger workflows using SMS automations.
Use promotional SMS to let everyone know about your business and all of its products and services. This works best when you are introducing a brand new product or service. You can also use this type of text to share special promotions, sales, company announcements, branded events, etc. Some entrepreneurs even use it to give customers tips on how to best use their products.
Promotional text messages can be event-triggered, meaning they are sent when customers take certain actions on your website. For example, if a customer signs up on your website to receive text messages from your business, your SMS tool can automatically send marketing text messages to them by adding their phone number to your existing lists.
Sending messages with promotional deals and discounts is a good way to get your brand in front of your ideal audience. Send messages directly to customers and let them know about deals, discounts, special sales, and clearances that you have. Most of the time, these bulk SMS messages will be able to create that sense of urgency that compels people to check out your offerings.
Speaking of creating a sense of urgency, flash sales are also incredibly effective. here, you offer a limited quantity of the product or service that you are promoting. You then inform customers through text that this flash sale is happening. This creates urgency and increases demand because customers do not want to miss out on these huge savings or limited deals. The time element is what sets it apart from other SMS types.
Another example of promotional messages are SMS coupons. These are messages that are often sent in the form of MMS or multimedia messaging service. These coupons are similar to discount messages and promotional deals, except they have an expiry date and can be used to boost online sales. They usually have QR codes that can instantly be scanned and used by your customers. SMS coupons are great for boosting traffic and drawing more attention to your latest products.
With promotional texts, you have the freedom to get creative. Package your promotional deals in the most eye-catching ways. Try having text-to-win competitions, for example.
This form of SMS marketing involves having customers join a contest by simply responding to your text. Once the deadline is done, you select a winner using a random generator. The winner can get gift cards, free gifts, or even complimentary services. This is one of the easiest SMS marketing strategies you can use. It can even be entertaining for your customers. Text-to-win competitions can be highly engaging for customers, prospects, and leads.
Finally, a loyalty program is great for encouraging customers to make a purchase to reach higher rewards as a long-time customer. This can encourage them to give you referrals or make a purchase to earn points and work towards greater rewards when certain milestones are reached.
These SMS marketing examples are perfect for cultivating long term relationships with your most loyal customers. Customers want to feel valued. That is why you reward those who have been around for a very long time.
Transactional SMS Messages
Transactional SMS messages, on the other hand, contain information that customers need. These are messages related to their purchase, such as order confirmation details, shipping information, cart abandonment, etc. Sending customers a marketing message to keep them informed is a great way to build brand loyalty.
You do not need to get creative with transactional messages. At this point, you don’t need to sell anything to your audience. All they want is information about the product they bought.
Keep in mind that if your customer or visitor only signs up to receive transactional text messages, you cannot market to them or send them promotional SMS, unless they give consent to do so.
Even if you can’t market to someone through a transactional SMS list, it is still worth building up this list. So collect phone numbers anyway.
Alerts and notifications can either be transactional or promotional. You can give them updates about business hours, new arrivals, special events, or any promotional deal that you currently have. You can also notify customers about their recent purchase and its expected arrival time.
Is Text Message Marketing Dead?
Some people think that SMS campaigns are not effective simply because they have ignored, deleted, or opted out of these text message campaigns from SMS providers before. But this does not necessarily mean that your marketing efforts are being wasted on mobile users. Digital marketing works best when you use all channels available to you.
Fortunately, this particular channel for digital marketing is not dead—in fact it is thriving even in the age of social media.
Even today, in 2022, SMS marketing is still just as effective as email campaigns. This is because people are more attached to their phones than ever before. They are more likely to become website visitors if you send the right text to their mobile device.
According to a recent study from SimpleTexting, text message marketing is still alive and well. The study surveyed over 1,300 consumers and marketers, revealing that over 76% of brands intend to invest more in text message marketing in the next year. On the other hand, 62% of consumers willingly subscribed to receive texts from at least one brand within the last year.
If you launch SMS campaigns, you can get text subscribers who can potentially be converted into loyal customers.
Blogs used to claim that SMS is no longer effective and needs to be “put out of its misery”. But entrepreneurs should realize that this marketing strategy is not only cheap but also effective. You have nothing to lose and everything to gain when you invest in SMS marketing. It can increase online purchases. It can help you build a relationship with a particular subscriber who is always purchasing your products. You can build a sense of urgency around time sensitive deals.
With the COVID-19 pandemic, the digital marketing landscape has shifted even further, causing people to hang onto their mobile devices even closer than ever. In fact, 76% of consumers reported increased screen time due to the pandemic. This only benefits SMS marketers who now have even more marketing material to work with.
Sending SMS Messages: Best Practices
SMS is not dead, but you still have to make sure you are doing everything right so you can get the best results. You still need to follow some best practices to make your text-based strategy work. So keep some of these tips in mind:
First, you need to know your audience. While it is easy to get people to sign up for your text list, it is also easy to get them to opt out. So always know what your audience members are looking for and how often they are willing to receive content. Avoid sending them meaningless and pointless texts—those will definitely get ignored.
Give your text subscribers what they signed up for. Since they are trusting you with their contact info, you shouldn’t waste that trust. Instead, use it as an opportunity to build relationships. Be transparent about what kind of messages they can expect from your company and then stick with it.
Keep in mind that when it comes to SMS marketing, less is more. Do not blow up your customers’ phones just because they gave you their number. That’s a quick way to get them to opt out. Consistency is the key. Do not bombard them with overly-promotional messages, or else your customers may unsubscribe.
If you think you are contacting people too often, you probably are. The number one reason people opt out or unsubscribe from SMS marketing messages is because the brand messaged them too frequently.
Before you hit send on that new SMS campaign, ask yourself if your recipients will engage in that type of content. What did they sign up for and what are you giving them?
Remember that if you spam people, they won’t pay much attention to your future texts—even the ones that are essential. Streamline your SMS campaigns by only sending the most important text content. Studies show that consumers prefer to receive just one text from a brand per week.
Use it right and SMS marketing will give you faster response times than email marketing. A lot of customers will reply to emails within a half-hour to an hour. But 72% of people respond to texts within 10 minutes.
Texts also give you tons of engagement. You will see click-through rates between 20% and 35%. Combine that with other popular channels and you will definitely connect with your ideal audience in no time.
More than Sending SMS Messages: Use Kennected to Generate More Leads
The growing presence of SMS marketing software only proves that SMS marketing is alive. The savviest marketers are using it to reach their target audience. SMS messages give you a direct line to these valuable customers.
While you leverage SMS marketing, you can boost your lead generation efforts using Kennected. This LinkedIn automation tool simplifies your lead generation.
With Kennected, you can unlock the power of automated lead generation. But this revolutionary marketing software is more than just automated lead generation. Kennected helps businesses enjoy unmatched return on investment with its Lead Flow Mastery education platform. This is why many clients have stayed on board for a long time.
Kennected taps into LinkedIn’s database of professionals, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and decision makers to bring you the best leads for your business. Choose your target audience with ease and find your exact target customers.
Kennected lets you personalize your messages so that your leads are more likely to respond. This also increases your conversion rate significantly. If you want to find a way to stand out in your prospect’s inbox, personalizing your messages is essential. And just like any SMS marketing platform, Kennected does that for you automatically. It is the best tool to complement your existing SMS marketing strategy.
Kennected’s Smart Inbox is integrated with your LinkedIn so you can manage all of your prospects’ communication. Imagine being able to send personalized messages to everyone in your defined area or town that has a LinkedIn account. You can craft an offer that is exclusive to LinkedIn. Whether the lead buys something off of your first message or just chooses to connect with you—you win. Once they connect with you on LinkedIn, you have access to their email, phone numbers, and other information that are publicly available.
Kennected can help you build up your SMS list as well as email list for your email marketing campaigns. It’s about being everywhere your ideal potential customers are. Kennected can help you grow your business.
More than 17,000 clients trust Kennected to help grow their businesses. You can be one of them. Book a demo with Kennected today to learn more.
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