SMS Marketing: Advantages, Examples

What is SMS Marketing

SMS marketing is a promotion of a company's products or services with the help of short text messages using mobile phone operators' services.

• Help to sell — show special offers, promotions and advertisements.
• Inform about the status of orders, changes in plans, remind about events.
• Engage — invite customers to participate in different events and share their opinion about the company.

An SMS campaign can either be a part of a marketing strategy or the only channel of communication with customers. Please note that SMS advertising shouldn't be intrusive lest you want the user to block the company number. It's more effective to combine text messages with other communication channels.

Advantages of SMS marketing

Speed

Price

Personalization

Use targeted short text messages for advertising campaigns — only a certain segment or specific users will receive your messages. Your customer will get an individual discount or confidential information about their order. Also, address recipients by their names. This approach is more effective than sending out impersonal text messages to all customers at once.

How to Start an SMS Campaign in a Proper Way

Comply with the legislation of the country

Make sure that your messages are easy to understand

A simple and clear text is the main rule of a good message. No one wants to read your message and try to guess what you mean. Your text messages should be short and reader-friendly. It doesn't mean that you can't be creative, just don't forget about simplicity. In the message, specify your offer and how and where to get a bonus: go to the website or to the offline store, make a call.

Keep it brief

Your customers don't want to read long and complicated text messages. Be brief, stick to the topic, but always add a CTA so that your customer understands what to do next.

Don't send too many messages

If customers consider your texts intrusive, they're more likely to block your number. Don't send messages about all the promotions, all the company news and every new article in the corporate blog. Short text messages should contain only useful and urgent information. Take into account the customer's time zone: hardly anyone will be happy to receive a text message in the middle of the night.

Segment and personalize

Use interactive content

To keep communication with your customers, add links to the company's resources to your messages: websites with products, pages with discounts, quizzes, surveys and so on.

Don't forget about analytics

Ask customers to confirm their numbers

Sometimes a person can specify an incorrect or inactive number. Then the company will be wasting money. Set up Opt-in — your customer will enter a code from SMS into a special field to confirm their number.

Automate the sending of short text messages

Let customers receive your text messages immediately after placing an order. Let them know that you have seen their order and will respond soon. Create an SMS welcome series for new or potential customers.

Wish your customers happy holidays

This is a good way to remind the audience about your company and increase customer loyalty.

Examples of SMS Campaigns

Promotions and discounts

Be sure to include details: a discount percentage and promotional period.

Collecting feedback

Notifications of order status

It's important for the customer to know that their order is being processed and will be delivered. If you specify the order number in your text message, and not in email, you do your customer a favor.

Reminders about a specialist visit

It's a useful idea for beauty salons, clinics and educational companies. The customer receives a confirmation with appointment time and then a reminder. Now, the customer won't forget about it.

Wishing happy holidays

Don't forget to wish your customers a happy birthday and so on. Customers get your attention, you receive their loyalty.

Information about changes in plan

Mobile operators and banks also use SMS messages to inform customers about changes in rates, account balance or new products.

Tools for SMS Campaigns

Companies use either a separate service for SMS campaigns or a direct integration with the provider's gateways of their marketing system. In the first case, it's usually necessary to upload the database with phone numbers to the service. In the second case, the customer's number is linked with other data in the profile.

The platform already has ready-made integrations with mobile phone operators and offers options of individual approach to each customer.

Conclusion

SMS marketing is a quick way of promotion and communication with customers. Being a reliable channel of information delivery, text messages are not expensive. A message won't go to spam and will definitely reach your customer. With short text messages, you can advertise your products, inform customers about promotions, order statuses, changes in plans and tell other company news.

It's important to take into account the laws of the country. For example, there are laws according to which you need to receive the customer's agreement before sending out your messages. Also, it's important to check numbers using confirmation codes. Effective text messages are short and clear, always contain a call to action. Don't forget about personalization, don't send too many messages, remember about time zones (no one wants to be woken up in the middle of the night).

SMS marketing is a tool that is used in combination with other marketing methods or separately. You can use special services or the functionality of all-in-one marketing platforms, like the Altcraft Platform, to send your messages.