How To Make SMS Marketing Work For Your Business

Effective marketing is all about effective communication – it doesn’t matter if you’re an international corporate or a mom ‘n pop corner store. Marketing can also be a complicated and expensive beast with an insatiable appetite for your time and money. However, as more and more businesses are discovering, SMS marketing makes a lot of sense. And a lot of cents!

SMS Marketing in A Nutshell

With so many marketing avenues available to business owners, it can be hard to filter out the ones that will work for you, and those that are probably just going to be a waste of money. SMS marketing is one of those unicorns that can work brilliantly for any business of any size. How so?

• The best reach: SMS marketing doesn’t require that the recipient have an internet connection or sufficient data. Anyone with a cell phone will have the facility to receive SMS messages at no cost to themselves, which means you can effectively reach 90 percent of the population in this way.
• Any device: SMSs can be accessed on any mobile device – even those tough old bricks that some people still use. All you need is a screen and a keypad because an SMS is simply words.
• Speedy: Most SMSs will be delivered in under 15 seconds, and 98 percent of people will open these messages instantly (or at least within 3 minutes.)

Looking at these stats, it’s clear that SMS marketing is something of a no-brainer. But, like anything, it needs to be done right.

Tips To Get The Best Out Of Your SMS Marketing Campaigns

Timing is everything

Because of the immediate nature of SMSs, choosing the right time is critical to the success of your campaign. For example, a restaurant may consider sending details of their dinner specials to their audience in the late afternoon to encourage them to make a booking. A local event would likely send a reminder out the day before, or a retail outlet may advertise their “Big Sale” on a Friday in anticipation of the weekend rush.

Get Immediate Response

SMS marketing relies on a simple, focused message with a single call to action. A message without the additional images, pop-ups and information often found on a website or on a brochure elicits a higher conversion rate: people are more likely to respond to that one thing. As an example, a restaurant may say, “Click here to make a booking” which would take them to a reservations page. Or perhaps “Reply Yes” would be the call to action inviting someone to attend a workshop.

Deliver Value

We live in a world where people get hundreds of messages every day, from sales calls to social requests, emails, WhatsApp messages and more. If your message doesn’t deliver immediate value to your audience, then you are likely to lose them. When we are given access to someone’s personal number, we simply have to respect that. Spam is the shortest route to a disconnected client. Make sure that you understand your customer and what they need, and then be certain to deliver exactly that.

Automate your messages

Don’t you just love technology? SMS marketing platforms are no longer just a means to send out some words. No, we now have the opportunity to automate an entire funnel and link it into our other marketing channels. These pre-planned, automated messages allow a customer to be taken on a journey with very little engagement required from your business simply by replying “help”, or “more info”.

Opt-Out

It’s always good practice to provide a way out for your customers. We don’t like unsubscribes, but honestly, your customer will like you even less if they feel that they are being held hostage to your marketing messages. And make it easy: some opt-out messages take you to screen after screen in order to complete the process, and this hoop jumping is just going to upset people. A simple unsubscribe or opt out button with a one-click solution is the best way forward.

As we can see, SMS marketing is a cost-effective and highly efficient form of marketing which, when done right, will show brilliant results. However, you may not be sure of exactly what your next step is.

At Cellfind, we know SMS marketing, and we offer various packages to suit your business. We’d like to invite you to chat with us to work through any questions you may have, and then we can put your business firmly on the road to SMS success.