SMS campaigns and practices have been constantly evolving. With new tools for marketing coming up and people spending thousands every month on social media marketing, surprisingly, text message marketing has not lost its impact. Due to a proven opening and reading rate higher than emails and social media marketing, there are some companies that favor SMS marketing to boost their sales.
If you want to learn the tricks of the trade and stay above all in your SMS marketing methods, then you should keep up-to-date with the latest best practices for 2020.
• Always Seek Permission From Your Customer Before You Send Them Messages
Do not take text messaging for granted. You may feel that it is just a simple text message and cannot cause any harm to you if no good, but you may be wrong here. Some customers may not want to get disturbed with such promotional messages and might block you in frustration. A good idea is to send an email or have the customer register with their numbers at your physical store if they want to receive SMS marketing messages. This will give you permission to send them alerts, updates, and new information regarding your products.
• Only Send Your Messages During Business Hours
Another mistake that marketers have realized is to stop sending marketing messages to customers outside business hours. The standard business hours are 9 am to 5 pm and it is advisable not to send any messages after or before these hours. The customers might be busy and might end up blocking you. However, there is an exception to this norm as certain food delivery brands such as dominos can send promotional messages during weekends or after 6 pm to attract customers for placing dinner orders.• Make Your Opt-Out Process Simple
In case, some customers do not want to receive messages from you further, then they should be easily able to opt-out. Send opt-out links along with your promotional messages so that customers do not wish to receive messages that can easily opt-out. This prevents them from blocking your number in frustration.• Make Your Messages More Personal
While sending promotional messages, do not sound very robotic. Use the first name of the customer, so that you make a better connection. To get each customer’s personal name, you can use the data available in your CRM.• Send Hyperlinks For Useful Information
Send messages that can be linked to your deals and promotional offers. It will help you if you take out some time to get some relevant information about your customers. For example, as an eCommerce site owner, you can track what your customer shopped previously and can promo codes for similar shopping ideas. You can also add links to your messages to make it easier for the customer to browse.After you have taken care of the above, you also need to track what is working and what is not. Monitor your click-through rates, opt-out rates, conversion rates, growth rates. If all is well, it means that your company is doing well.