The most important aspect of communicating with customers with an eye on marketing or brand building is to ensure that they read the communication. Customers should be willing to communicate with you.
Develop some prior relationship with customers and earn their confidence so that you can meaningfully communicate with them. As communication holds the key to marketing success, you must take special care to ensure that customers not only welcome the communication but also take note of the underlying message and react accordingly.
SMS messaging for marketing also known as business texting is an effective means of communicating with customers that have a high reading rate. Marketers can expect good returns from SMS marketing just because of this aspect only. Most importantly, SMS messages are likely to receive a response within the first 15 minutes.
1. SMS messages are accepted as well
There is a general notion that the audience is ready to receive SMS messages and marketers must take advantage of it. Studies have shown that in 60% instances, the audience is ready to respond to SMS messages promptly.
It means that that possibility of evoking a response from the audience is much higher if you send SMS messages to them. When you send an SMS message, you can be certain that the recipient will open it because this happens almost in 98 percent cases. Moreover, 90 percent recipients would respond to the message in just 3 seconds.
There are two distinct reasons for such high read rate of SMS messages. The first reason is that SMS messages being concise and crisp do not tax the patience of the recipients who would be wary of reading long texts. The other reason is that since SMS message does not need internet connectivity.
2. High engagement provides good marketing returns
Creating close engagement with consumers and providing them the best experience are the twin goals of marketers. Marketing messages sent by using SMS service scores high on this account.
Since customers are likely to read text messages as soon as they receive it, marketers are sure of crossing the first hurdle that paves the way for creating closer engagement.
There is mad scramble to gain the attention of customers and texting can do it easily and more convincingly. You need not spend a lot of money because setting up an SMS marketing campaign is quite inexpensive as compared to advertising or some other marketing methods.
3. It is simple to set up
Setting up SMS marketing campaign is very easy as it does not require any technicalities. It is perhaps the simplest way to set up any branding or marketing campaign that provides the path of least resistance and helps to gain full attention.
The trick is to maintain brevity in creating simple messages that transparently express the marketing needs and leaves nothing to the imagination.
It tells customers what you expect them to do in response to the message. It is this straight and simple approach that customers like because the underlying honesty of communications appeals to customers who feel it is essential to respond to the message.
In the worst situation when a customer would likely delete the message, they would have at least read the content. As you keep reading this article, you would come to know how you could succeed in SMS marketing.
4. Connect with customers at a personal level
To succeed in digital marketing of which SMS marketing is a part, you have to rely on personalization and data analytics. Personalization can give a tremendous boost to your marketing efforts, and you can use targeted text messaging to create a personalized experience that customers would be happy with.
The power of SMS to provide personalized experience is truly unmatched as it evokes much better response than other channels like social media and e-commerce. The only way to tell customers that you are taking care of their interests is through personalized messages that build a close relationship with them.
Through the messages, it is possible to address their specific needs by matching with their behavioral traits and tastes. Personalization helps to widen the customer base and generate more revenue as you can segment customers and create strategies for targeting them accordingly.
Tips for effective messaging
Since it is easy to communicate swiftly with SMS without intruding into the private space of customers, it becomes a potent weapon for marketers. However, you must know the right ways of communicating with text messages by learning a few things.
- Create a well thought out strategy about what type of communication you must create that could help to achieve the marketing goals. Knowing your customers is crucial because it determines what kind of communication they would like.
- Besides deciding on the type of messages that would suit targeted customers, make a plan about the frequency of sending messages. Draft the messages to convey to customers what benefit they would derive by engaging in conversation with you.
- Just as you would give the opportunity of subscribing to your text messages, you should also give customers the option of unsubscribing. Include relevant instructions in the messages so that they could opt out from the scheme whenever they want. This would ensure that you engage only in consensual communication with customers who are interested.
- Create professional messages that have a tone that is unique to your business. This would help customers to distinguish your messages from the crowd of other messages they receive. Keep the messages, short, crisp and attractive, and there must be a definite purpose of messaging that should become apparent on reading the message.
- Avoid using shorthand text and do not send messages at odd hours that customers might dislike. If customers have to bear any cost on account of communicating with you that can happen if customers do not have unlimited subscription plans, make it very clear with some disclaimer.
As mobile device users are increasing at a rapid pace, you must make full use of the opportunities in marketing by giving the right emphasis to SMS marketing.
