In the era of the digital world, consumers are constantly amidst numerous notifications from their favorite brands, friends, family, work, and other groups.

It is a good thing for a person to stay in touch with the rest of the world. However, it sometimes becomes annoying if the notifications are useless and time-wasting. This often leads to disabling the notifications. This might be good for the consumers, but for the brands, it’s a hurdle to market their products and services.

But…there is still one perfect way to reach your customer without irritating him and he will surely give your brand a heads up!

It is “SMS marketing”.

Yes, the good old text messages!

The majority of people think that text messages have become extinct and they won’t be fruitful for a marketing campaign. But, an SMS marketing campaign can be effective to capture the attention of your consumers and lure them to visit your website or stores.

Did you know that 82 people out of 100 open the text messages they receive? On the other hand, the open rate of emails was 21.3% in 2020.

The above figures prove that an SMS marketing campaign is more effective than email marketing. Instead of accessing the email in the inbox, or opening the social media website to view the posts, less time is needed to quickly glance at the messages in the notification panel.

To get the desired result from your SMS marketing campaigns, you must curate effective text message marketing strategies that will not irritate your customers.

In today’s article, we’ll share some effective SMS marketing tips to get the immense benefit from the campaign.

12 Effective SMS Marketing Tips For Successful Text Message Campaigns

1. Get To The Point In 160 Characters

You do not have many characters to waste or to engage your consumer in a long boring text, no.

160 characters, that’s all you have to either convince your customer or irritate him. The choice is yours. Unlike emails and social media posts, you cannot write long messages to persuade your customer.

But hey, don’t get sad. At least you don’t need an internet connection or graphical designer to design your messages. SMS marketing only needs a cell phone, message, and of course the contact number of the customer.

To make the most of those 160 characters, make sure you follow the below-mentioned guidelines:

a) Clear Purpose

Your SMS should be clear and to the point. It shouldn’t have any ambiguity which confuses the customer about its purpose. Avoid using long useless sentences and get straight to the point. Your customer doesn’t have the entire day to decipher the purpose of your messages.

b) Avoid Using Confusing Abbreviations

Generation Z has a unique language to interact with on social media and messages. That doesn’t mean a business should start using that too, no.

Your text messages should look professional and easy to understand by all age groups. Don’t just design your messages for the youngsters who understand the short abbreviations like ‘gr8’, ‘ASAP’, ‘TY’, etc. this might confuse the other audience who are not familiar with it.

c) Shorten Your URLs

If you are inserting the link of your website, or social media page, then make sure to declutter the URL and shorten it to fit the character budget of 160.

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d) Use Uppercase To Highlight And Offer Or Something Important

Using uppercase in messages seems like someone is screaming on the top of their voices. Avoid doing that. Use caps lock when you want to bring the attention of your customer to something important such as SALE, DISCOUNTS, FREE, etc. Do not bombard the entire text with uppercase.

2. Promote SMS Opt-In

Text messages are personal. You cannot send your SMS marketing campaign to any number you come across, no. This could lead to serious consequences.

To make your marketing campaign a success and avoid getting fined for sending unsolicited messages to the audience, make sure your customers willingly give out their numbers to you and welcome the messages from you.

Use the following methods to promote SMS opt-in:

a) Use Social Media

Social media websites can be an excellent way to invite your customers to share their phone numbers with you. You can insert a ‘Phone Number’ field in your lead generation form on Facebook.

For better results, you can include an opt-in button to make them subscribe to your SMS marketing campaigns.

b) Offer Something In Return

Why would your customer share his phone number with you? He must be given a good reason to do so, right?

Before asking them to share their phone numbers, offer something to them which will tempt them to share their numbers. For instance, if you have a salon, you can tempt the customer to opt-in for your messages in return for a free nail color application.

Getting the mobile numbers willingly from the customers makes the matter legal. Or else, you could be sued for using the phone number of a customer without their consent. Don’t do that.

3. Introduce Yourself

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Receiving a text from an unknown number is never delightful. Whenever you send a message to your customer, no matter if he is new or old, always introduce yourself first before getting to your point.

By introducing yourself, we certainly don’t mean to write long paragraphs about who you are and what you do, no. Introducing yourself merely implies telling your customer from who they’re receiving the message.

Just mention the name of your brand in the text message to make your customer aware that it’s you they’re hearing…err…reading from.

For instance, if you are sending a message about a sale, then don’t just start by sharing the details of the sale. Draft your message like this:

“XYZ Brand invites you to visit the store for availing the year-end SALE...”

Want to see how a kitchen appliance brand drove 28x more in ROI? Read the case study here of how a simple introduction could make all the difference in converting a sale.

4. Add Value

Nobody likes random texts from brands that keep their phones buzzing throughout the day. Remember, your customers are not your friends. They will not be looking forward to hearing from you at random hours of the day.

Your text messages should be important for the customers. If you send the messages just to remind your customer about yourself and have nothing to offer, then get ready to lose a customer from the subscription list. Check out this example from Jazzcupo below of how adding value to your customers can help you recover 20% more abandoned carts:

Your messages should be relevant and useful for the customers. Instead of messaging him randomly, send messages to make him aware of a sale, discounts, launch of the new collection, etc.

You can also message your customers about the finalization of their order, delivery timings, dispatch of the order, etc. to keep them aware of the items that they’ve ordered.

5. Make Them Actionable

Just like in email marketing customers are provided with a clear call-to-action button, to get the most out of the campaign. Don’t forget to do the same with SMS marketing campaigns.

Get your customers to engage with you by providing them with a clear call-to-action. Apart from updating your customers about the sale, or new products, invite them to text you back for winning a prize or entering in a lucky draw contest.

You can also send a text message to your customer and lure them into visiting your store or website by offering them freebies or discount codes that they can avail of by showing the text message that they have received from you.

Also, if you would like your customers to join you on your social media pages, provide them with the links to do so. Simply, requesting them to follow the page on Facebook, or Instagram, etc. isn’t going to bring the desired results.

6. Add A Personal Touch

SMS is an intimate channel to reach the customers, make sure you add a personal touch to increase the effectiveness of your SMS marketing campaigns.

Personalize your messages by tailoring them according to the age, gender, interests, location of your customers. By designing specific messages for each segment of your audience, you will get more specific results that you are seeking.

One of the common SMS marketing tips is to send the message on your customer’s birthday and offer him a gift in the form of a discount code or a voucher. It is sure to make your customer’s day.

7. Don’t Bore Your Subscriber

Once your customers have subscribed to your messages, make the most of this opportunity and keep your customers entertained.

Instead of sending the same repetitive messages about your new collection or sales, try to invite them to engage with you on social media. Attach a link to your pages and invite them to participate in contests or giveaways.

You can also invite them to share their feedback with you. You can use customer feedback to make changes in your process and improve the user experience. Again, don’t forget to provide the link of your social media handles to make the job easy for them.

8. Boost Traffic On Your Website

A huge audience on a website means increased conversions and ultimately increasing revenues. Why not send the link to your website on the text messages?

Just by tapping on the link your customer will enter your online store and will explore all the amazing products that you have for them. However, only insert the link when it is relevant to the overall context of your message.

Attaching the link of your website with a Happy Birthday wish will look weird and the message will lose the personal touch.

9. Boost The Results Of Your Email Campaigns

SMS open rate is much higher than the email open rate. To boost up your email marketing results, take help from SMS marketing.

Instead of conveying the entire message through SMS, keep it a mystery and arouse the curiosity of your customers so that they can check their emails right away.

Emails are sometimes never read by the customers and the majority of them never even know that you sent them an email. To prevent this and rev up your email marketing campaign, give clues to the customer on SMS and then invite them to unveil the secret in their email.

You can send the text message that says ‘There is a surprise waiting for you in your email inbox, or ‘Check your email for wonderful news’, etc.

10. Be Mindful Of The Time

Don’t be annoying by sending texts at inappropriate times, or when your customer won’t even look at your messages. For instance, if you send the message at 4 AM, how many people do you think will read it? And not to mention how unprofessional it would look?

Send your customers text messages when they’re free or when they would be using their phones to acknowledge getting a text from you.

11. Customize Your SMS Program

When you’ve received your customer’s number, make sure to invest a little time before jumping right away to send them text messages.

Make separate lists according to the age, gender, location, and interests of the customers. Design the messages for each group and then send them to get the optimum results.

12. Create Sense Of Urgency

You don’t want to lose the effectiveness of your SMS right? If not, then trick your customer to take action by creating a sense of urgency.

Announce a sale, deals, and bundles, for a limited-time offer. When the customers are told that they have limited time, they quicken up their decision procedure. Mention the dates and timings when the discounts would be offered along with the link to your product pages.

Conclusion

Text messages are quite underrated when it comes to marketing channels. They are effective even if a person has issues with the internet. To get the most of SMS marketing, make sure you are familiar with how to use it the correct way to make it beneficial for your business.