Text message marketing, also known as SMS marketing, is a method that is spreading like wildfire to gain more interest in small businesses and large businesses across the county. Using personalized text alerts, businesses can grab the attention of a wider audience while cutting costs significantly. This is because while print alerts will cost a business per print, text alerts are priced by short line and by software. The public has also become desensitized to print marketing, while texts still hold a very personal grip on people.
The first step to getting interest in your business and gaining more regular customers using SMS marketing is to understand the difference between spam and actually desired texts. By letting your customers opt in to your texts, you are making sure that they want it. People who receive spam from companies very rarely (if ever) want to do business with that company. By sending out occasional texts to possibly interested customers, you are showing them that you respect both their privacy and their data plans.
Obtaining the cell phone numbers for an opt-in line is quite easy, if done correctly. Offering an incentive for customers to sign up for your text blasts, such as a prize, is a great way to get new customers interested in what your texts are saying. Events and event-related businesses will benefit from attending similar events with a company booth. Asking customers at your booth to opt-in for alerts to your event (or sales) will likely net a high yield of sign ups, simply because they have already shown interest in companies or events similar to yours already. Using your website as a way to advertise your text marketing will also get great results, especially if paired with exclusive discounts and secret sales. The bottom line of getting customers to sign up for your SMS marketing is to offer something special through your text messages, be it important information, secret sales and discount codes, or even something as simple as a chance to win a prize. Offer and they will come.
Next, remember that frequency counts. The business that uses their text messages to offer, “daily deals” will soon find out that fewer and fewer customers will read their texts. SMS marketing relies on the ability to get people to read texts. At most, try to shoot a text once a week that offers a discount, an update, or something else vital to your business. It is best to listen to people’s feedback about your company’s SMS marketing frequency. If you begin a new texting schedule, and you notice people opting out of your service, cut back the text messages a little. In addition, if customers complain about the high frequency of text messages being received, you know it is time to lessen the amount of messages you send.
When writing the right kind of SMS blasts, remember that keeping the sales personal matters a lot. If possible, try to get software that allows you to add your customer’s name when shooting a text blast. It’s more personal, and it will appear more “human” than being given a text talking about the latest sale. Making sure that the texts that you send also match what your customers are looking for will also make a huge difference in whether or not your business will use text message marketing to its fullest potential. For instance, if you are a business that caters to young mothers with expendable income, blasting about a 20% sale off the most elegant baby carrier makes sense. On the other hand, if you are a business that is focused on young mothers, it will not make sense to send out a mass text about the large sale you have on weight loss pills.
Keeping text messages upbeat, direct, and easy to understand will keep customers reading. The ideal text message marketing campaign is dotted with discounts, brief, and definitely simple. Small businesses that are looking for more customers via word of mouth also should suggest (occasionally) forwarding your more intriguing texts to friends. This works especially well with restaurants, bars, and event marketing. The more people know about what your business is doing, the more people will want to check it out, after all. More traditional companies, such as banks, clothiers, and supply shops would be smart to offer group discounts via SMS marketing for people who share your text discount codes with friends. The benefit for this is twofold. First, people will more likely spread the word about your SMS marketing service and get people to opt-in for more texts. Next, people will also be more likely to buy in large groups, which turns into profit for your company.
Lastly, remember that text-messaging marketing is best done with other forms of marketing as well. Using print, television, radio, and word-of-mouth are all great ways to get new customers to your business. Although text-messaging marketing is an amazing way to get interest in your company, its products, and its ideas, the only way that you can get the word out with text message marketing is by getting people to opt-in. The only way to get more people to opt-in is by telling them about your service, listening to their feedback, and offering them decent incentives.
Text message marketing is now one of the hottest ways to get customers, keep them, and learn from them. There is no question that SMS marketing offers a huge variety of benefits to small companies that are looking to grow their customer base. By harnessing this power correctly, you can sit back and watch your small business blossom, and expand in to the large company that you know it should be.
