Chances are you have gotten at least one text message about a store having a sale. This is SMS marketing. SMS is short message service or what we all know as text messaging or texting. You might wonder why there is a need for SMS marketing when there are a lot of messaging apps available.
Messaging apps are nicer to use than SMS because it allows easy attachment of photos and videos. SMS may have started allowing photos attachment, but this depends on the phone.
But then, not everyone owns a smartphone or uses messaging apps like Messenger, Viber, or Whatsapp, etc. This means you can only reach non-smartphone users through SMS.
SMS marketing allows you to send text messages from your phone or computer. Sending a few text messages is doable on a phone, but if you want to send text messages in bulk, using a computer is more convenient.
Marketers must take advantage of this. Imagine sending a single promotional text to hundreds of recipients in one go. It saves a lot of time and effort reaching out to your market.
One big reason why SMS marketing can be successful is recipients cannot ignore a message ding. It’s difficult to stop them from coming unless you disable the feature itself, but why will you do that?
Whereas for emails and other messaging apps, users can turn off the notifications from their phone’s setti1ngs. This kind of instant attention from SMS is a gift that marketers cannot ignore.
If you have a lot of sales leads that are not converting, a bulk SMS text messaging strategy might just do the trick. When done correctly, SMS marketing can turn more leads into customers.
Ouch! Is your website costing you sales? Find out with a free audit.**
** Not another disguised sales pitch. No strings attached. Applicable tips.
Strong coffee and nearby seating is highly recommended, but not mandatory.
Artificial Intelligence
Almost every industry, including marketing, is using AI. It makes marketing efficient and effective. Some
of the benefits in using AI are:
- 1Sending personalized messages is easy – Your aim is to send messages that recipients will read
that’s why you want to create personalized messages. To do this, you collect data on your
subscribers. Aside from their name, you collect their gender, birthday, and zip code. You also
want to know when to time your text correctly – should you text them on their lunch break,
weekend, or late evening. For existing customers, you want to know their purchase history. The
tone of your text will also depend on their age. Young customers appreciate text short-cuts like
“ur” for your or “txt” for text because you’re talking in their language. The opposite is true for
mature customers. Keeping track of all these personalization data is difficult without AI. - 2Less data errors – Because you are juggling a lot of data, having a machine makes you less prone
to committing errors. This will help you avoid sending messages to your customers when they’re
asleep. Or, misspell their name or use the wrong salutation. Worse, you don’t want to send a
message that will offend them just because you got the information wrong. Can you imagine
sending a promo discount for a pregnancy pictorial to a childless couple who has a difficult time
conceiving? - 3Save time and money – By automating your SMS process, you can save time and money that you
can use for other tasks. Do not spend hours sending the same message to everybody in your
address book when you can do it in mere minutes. - 4You can create better content – You can use the time you save from sending messages to doing
tasks that requires heavy thinking. This way, you can come up with meatier content or think of
other marketing strategies. - 5Improved ROI – Because AI gives you time to know your customers more, you will know what
time of campaign works for them. This will help you choose where you put your money in.
Ouch! Is your website costing you sales? Find out with a free audit.**
** Not another disguised sales pitch. No strings attached. Applicable tips.
Strong coffee and nearby seating is highly recommended, but not mandatory.
Tips for SMS Marketing
If you want to start using bulk SMS marketing, here are some tips for an efficient campaign.
- 1Use a Chatbot – Supplement your SMS marketing and messenger marketing with a chatbot.
Install one in your website to allow visitors to get replies to their questions faster. The chatbot
can redirect them to a live salesperson when needed. - 2Be accessible to customers – An important part of a personalized experience is your availability
to talk to the customers directly. You may not have enough manpower to handle all
conversations at a given time, but you can use auto-responding messages while they wait.
Create messages that can give them the information they need. This will save you time to
handle the load of messages. - 3Quantity and quality of reviews matter – It is imperative that you get good reviews. Reviews that
are all 5-stars are not believable. 4 out of 5 or 4.5 out of 5 is the ideal. Remember, bad reviews
are bad for business. Not only that, not having enough is also bad. If your competitors have 40
or more reviews each and you only have 5, who do you think customers will call? - 4Interact with your customers – AI allows you to be interactive with your customers. Make use of
this in any way you can think of. For example, you can rate customer satisfaction through this
method. Ask them to rate your service by texting any number from 1 (least satisfied) to 10 (most
satisfied). You can proceed from there.
SMS marketing in an effective channel to reach customers. Everybody who owns a mobile phone, even a non-smart one, can receive a text message.
It’s high time marketers take advantage of this. But don’t just send generic texts that will get ignored, or worse, blocked. Send personalized messages.
Don’t get daunted by the amount of data needed to allow personalization. Use an AI to handle the load.