Integrating SMS marketing into your existing marketing mix is a great way to reach a wider audience, boost user engagement with your brand, and improve conversion rates.
#1: Complement Email Marketing Efforts
Complementing your business’s email marketing efforts with an SMS marketing strategy allows you to build and deliver cohesive digital experiences.
This way, whenever you have to share in-depth information with subscribers – such as your most recent blog posts, case studies, or new product updates – you can craft a compelling email. On the flip side, if you simply need to get a quick, time-sensitive notification or message across, you should send an SMS instead.
If you simply need to get a quick, time-sensitive notification or message across, you should send an SMS.
So, why would you want to let your email subscribers get in touch with you via SMS?
- Quick and convenient. Asking businesses for more information or responding to a message is much faster (and more convenient) via SMS than email.
- Generate qualified leads. Allowing subscribers to reach out to you via SMS is a great way to convert them into qualified leads and ultimately, paying customers.
To put things into action, you might consider setting up different keywords that let customers ask for more information or complete a task.
For example, SaaS businesses might consider making it easy for customers to book time for a quick demo of their product. They might send out an email newsletter that lets subscribers know that they can Text DEMO to XXX-XXX-XXXX to schedule a quick demo. This keyword could be linked to an auto-response that helps the prospective customer set up a demo or provides further instructions.
#2: Send Out Reminders
We already know that SMS marketing is an easy and convenient way to connect with prospective customers. However, this doesn’t mean you should overdo it.
Striking the right balance between being helpful and delivering value can be tricky for businesses. One way to go about it is to limit outgoing messages to reminders, news, and important updates.
Here are some scenarios where businesses might need to send out quick reminders:
- You can share news, important updates, time-sensitive notifications with your customers to keep them in the loop about recent happenings. For example, you could let customers know about scheduled maintenance breaks in advance. Avochato’s Multimedia Messages feature lets you send and receive photos, videos, and file attachments using your unique Avochato phone number.
- A great way to keep in touch with your contacts is to notify them about special, limited-time offers and sales alerts. This is especially useful for keeping prospective customers engaged with your brand. With Avochato’s Schedule Texts feature, you’ll be able to create a reminder notification and automatically send them to your recipients at a pre-defined date and time.
- Some businesses use SMS marketing to share information about upcoming events, social media pages, and new arrivals. This helps them improve brand recognition and increase their customer base.
And here are some best practices to keep in mind:
- Pay attention to timing. You don’t want to inform customers about an upcoming sale weeks in advance via SMS because it’ll likely get lost in their inbox. Similarly, if you needed to send out an appointment reminder to your client, you’d want to do that the day before their appointment.
- Quality over quantity. While you may be tempted to send out a quick SMS to customers every now and then, it’s better to take a step back and ask yourself if your reminders are actually helpful to recipients. For example, reminding clients about their appointment each day starting a week before it’s scheduled would be pretty annoying.
- Personalize text messages. Avochato’s Assisted Intelligence uses customer-specific data like names and email addresses to create conditional parameters and custom links. For example, your text message might read Hi Shannon, this is a quick reminder that you have an appointment with XYZ on May 30th. Please reply with ‘YES’ to confirm!
#3: Reach a Wider Audience
Studies indicate that the number of mobile phone users in the world is expected to cross five billion by 2019. It’s no surprise that many businesses use SMS marketing to reach a wider audience and establish two-way communication with them.
Additionally, SMS marketing allows businesses to reach customers who are always on the go. This makes text messaging the go-to solution for businesses that send time-sensitive notifications such as organizations in the health, finance, and education industry.
To make the most of your SMS marketing efforts, you might consider incentivizing prospects. For example, you could offer special discounts, coupons, or promo codes.
Label your contacts automatically or manually so you can easily organize, find, and retarget a particular group of contacts.
Avochato’s Tags feature lets you label your contacts automatically or manually so you can easily organize, find, and retarget a particular group of contacts. For example, if you had a list of contacts who recently subscribed to your SMS notifications, you might offer them a discount on their next purchase.
#4: Conduct Surveys and Polls
As a business owner, you can use SMS marketing to gather important information from your customers that’ll help you improve your products and services or generate new business ideas.
Let’s consider a scenario: say, you want to learn more about whether or not you’re meeting your customers’ expectations.
One way to do this is to get recipients to rate your services on a scale of 1 to 10, fill out a poll, or take a quick survey. This is an easy way to gain valuable information about your customers’ experience with your brand and make informed decisions.
Get recipients to rate your services on a scale of 1 to 10, fill out a poll, or take a quick survey.
You can also use surveys to learn more about your customers. For example, the auto-response to texting AVO to XXX-XXX-XXXX might be a series of questions:
Question 1: Hi, what’s your name?
Question 2: What company do you work for?
Question 3: What’s your position at the company?”
The best part is that since responding to an SMS takes very little time, your customers will be more likely to provide immediate feedback. Avochato’s Automated Surveys feature lets you create custom surveys and collect information from your audience.
#5: Direct Recipients to Social Media Pages
Social media is a powerful tool for businesses looking to create brand awareness and start conversations to build loyalty with their target audience.
If you don’t have a strong social media presence, you can ask your SMS subscribers to follow your business on social platforms by offering them special discounts. For example, you might offer a 10% off on your next order for following your business on Twitter.
Ask your SMS subscribers to follow your business on social platforms by offering them special discounts.
Similarly, you can incentivize your social media followers to subscribe to your text messages. This way you’ll be able to target potential customers and deliver more value to prospective customers. It’s a win-win!
For those unfamiliar, a short code is an easy-to-remember 4 or 6 digit number that’s perfect for running SMS marketing campaigns. To build your contact list, you could post a tweet or Facebook post saying Text SWAG to 112233 to get a free swag bag the next time you visit one of our stores!. However, it’s important to keep in mind that short codes are expensive and should only be considered if you’ll be sending out a lot of text messages!
