SMS Marketing Tips & Ideas

With the continuous improvements and rampant use of mobile technologies such as the smartphone and the tablet, SMS marketing has surged to the forefront of any and all types of mobile marketing campaigns. The fact that 98% of all text messages are opened and read, and the fact that these messages are read within mere minutes of their arrival, should tell you that mobile marketing is not just the future of marketing, it is the NOW of marketing. However, efficiently managing your mobile marketing campaign can be tricky. Simply having an SMS mobile marketing strategy is not good enough, you want to be smart about it; but no worries, we’re here to help! We’ve compiled a list of ten things that are important to remember when constructing your SMS mobile marketing campaign.

Conduct an SMS Poll

Sometimes simply orchestrating an SMS poll, whether it be a multiple choice poll or an open vote poll, can be much more effective than you think. An SMS poll doesn’t just engage your SMS subscribers by asking their opinion on something, but it allows them to let their voices be heard and gives them a sense of power and control when it comes to your product or service; subscribers love this. If you feel like you’re not getting enough participation, offer a coupon or reward to subscribers to entice them into participating in your poll. There are also platforms where you can post the poll results live on your website or blog so subscribers can get more immediate feedback. SMS polls are generally great ways to increase brand recognition with your customers, get feedback from them, and generate excitement and interest around your product or brand.

Attach Media to Your Texts

If you want to increase the odds of people engaging in your text, you will want to attach media links to them. This can be a simple photo to spice up your text, or it can be something more sophisticated such as a link to a landing page with more information, or a video explaining how to do something. Sometimes, just posting some fun media that’s related to your business will generate buzz around your company or product, even if it isn’t necessarily directly related.

Create a Social Media Widget

Integrating your texts with social media outlets such as Facebook and Twitter, is probably one of the best things you can do for your SMS campaign. A lot of SMS marketing platforms offer easy-to-use social networking widgets that you can simply copy and paste into your texts, as well as your website’s HTML code. Adding a widget like this will allow your SMS subscribers to easily access your social networking pages, announces any poll you conduct on the social network as well as through text, and makes it much easier to add more people to your customer database.

Keep the Texting Lingo for High Schoolers

Sometimes conductors of SMS marketing campaigns fool themselves into believing that if they text their subscribers in the modern day lingo that is common with text messaging, they will connect more with their subscribers. This is not true! Most of the people you will be reaching out to are not teenagers (unless you are directly marketing to that demographic, then this is appropriate), but they are adults with cash to spend. Today’s text lingo such as “OMG”, “TTYL”, and “BRB” will come across as childish and immature to adults, and will most likely end up hurting you more than you think it will help you. You will have time to construct your text messages before sending them out, make it sound like you took the time.

Keep Your Message Simple and Singular

It can be tempting to mention several different promotions, sales, or offers in one message, but this can confuse your customers. Remember, you only have 160 characters to work with (140 if you’re posting through Twitter); don’t try to cram too much into one message. Keep your scope limited to one central idea per text. If you want to mention 3 different sales that your company has going this week, then construct 3 different text messages, one for each sale. This will make things much simpler for your subscribers and you will be much less likely to lose customers through either sheer confusion or just annoyance.

Efficiently Time Your Text Messages

Just blasting subscribers with a plethora of text messages at all times of the day and night is a recipe for disaster. You want to make sure you time your messages effectively so that you can get more people reading and responding to them. Traditionally, it has been found that SMS messages get the most responses when they are sent in the late afternoon, early evening, or any time during the day on weekends.

Keep Purchasing Simple and Easy

This is probably the most important thing to remember when constructing an SMS message. Make sure it is easy for customers to make purchases using your texts! If the buying process become too complicated, or is too many steps, most potential customers will just give up and leave you hanging without making the sale. Also, when making promotional codes, make sure they are easy to remember. Remembering the code “SHOE25” is much easier than remembering “SHOE85763652”. Using a simple code like “SHOE25” is especially effective if you are offering 25% off of shoes for any customer that shows the text to participating retailers. It’s easier to remember and reminds customers of the deal they are getting.

Begin Messages With Action Words

Beginning your text with an action word, or verb, is a great way to get customers moving while also livening up your text messages. Action words generate action on the part of the consumer and also help shorten what would otherwise be long and lengthy sentence that can put you over the 140 or 160 character limit. Words like “buy”, “sell”, “jump”, “run”, “save”, “spend”, “purchase”, and “stop” are all great action words to start your messages with. Rule of thumb: whatever you want your customers to do as a result of your text, start with that word.

Use Short Sentences

Writing long, lengthy, and descriptive sentences will not only cause you to go over your character limit, but it will also bore subscribers before they bother finishing reading your message. Short sentences allow your subscribers to forward your messages to other people; they cannot do this if your long sentences take up the entire 140-160 character limit. Short sentences also improve your writing and force you to cut to the chase much quicker and more efficiently. Not only will this make constructing SMS messages easier for you, but your customers will have a much easier time reading them.

Don’t Overdo Capitalization

This rule goes hand in hand with text lingo, but there are instances where capitalization is important. Using it in text lingo, such as “UR”, is a no-no. But if you’re trying to emphasize an event like a sale or promotion, using capitalization is a great way to ensure your customers see the event in the message, as well asremember it. But keep your capitalization to a minimum; overdoing it will confuse your customers, or just make them look down on you.

Using these ten tips will dramatically help your SMS mobile marketing campaign and make it more efficient. A lot of companies have already jumped on the SMS marketing campaign train, so when you do, you want to make sure that you stand out from the crowd. Using these tips will help you do just that!