In a world where the average attention span is just 8.25 seconds and competition for customer attention is fierce, you need something personal and direct. Commercial text marketing is one medium that stands out in the crowd, doesn’t let the readers get distracted, and is not just direct but also personal.
Consider this: there are 5.65 billion mobile users in the world. That’s a massive audience. And with text marketing, you can bypass the clutter and land straight on your customer’s mobile. It’s a powerful tool that, when used right, can help you reach your audience effectively. Just imagine the possibilities.
This guide covers everything you need to understand text marketing, from why to how. Let’s dive in.
Understanding commercial text marketing
Simply put, commercial or SMS marketing sends informational or promotional messages directly to customers. It is a powerful communication strategy that engages the audience directly through mobile phones.
The messages sent are short and to the point, usually limited to 160 characters or one SMS length. They convey immediacy and intimacy to connect with customers in a personalized way. Another important aspect of text marketing is the opt-in nature, where the recipient, our customer, must subscribe to receive messages from the business.
There are mainly two types of commercial texts used by businesses:
Conversational messages: These are two-way messages that are highly personalized and 1:1, like customer support requests or product information.
Bulk texts: These are one-way messages sent to a group of people at once, such as special festive offers or product announcements.
How does commercial text marketing work?
Commercial text marketing uses a series of steps to target your customers and send them SMS.
Here are the steps that you need to follow:
Building your subscriber list
Build a list of customers who have done business with you and/or have opted to receive SMS from your business. This is called opt-in; obtaining customers’ permission to send them messages is crucial. You can collect this through various methods:
- In-store sign-ups at the checkout counter
- Website pop-ups with sign-up incentives
- Social media integrations offering sign-up options along with discount codes
- Keyword opt-ins, where the customer texts a specific keyword to the number to receive offers and notifications
with Textmagic!
Choosing an SMS marketing platform
Choose an SMS service provider or a text messaging platform to manage your SMS campaign. Using a platform streamlines your SMS campaign management by providing various options like:
- Uploading and managing your list
- Creating texts and scheduling message campaigns
- Personalizing messages with customer details or dynamic mail merge contact fields
- Tracking and analyzing campaign performance through metrics like CTR and open rates
- Offering features like–two-way texting, importing mobile numbers from Excel, and toll-free texting
Crafting a compelling SMS text
Once your subscriber list and messaging platform are in place, you need an impactful and concise message that grabs attention and compels customers to follow through with the offer. You can also use text templates from the platform to craft your text.
Here are some key points to consider for crafting good, catchy SMS text:
- Get straight to the point and keep it short. Avoid long-winged messages
- Use customer names and greetings to create a personalized message
- Include a clear CTA to tell customers what you want them to do, such as visiting a website, redeeming a code, following the link to get a coupon code, or replying to confirm the reservation or appointment.
Sending targeted campaigns
To send targeted text and maximize the effectiveness of your SMS marketing campaign, you segment your subscribers based on purchase history, demographics, and engagement. This enables you to send personalized messaging with specific segmented customers that resonates with them and increases the chances of conversion.
Tracking and analyzing results
Measuring the effectiveness of your SMS campaign gives you a clear picture of what’s working and what needs to change. It enables you to make data-driven marketing decisions and optimize future campaigns. Most platforms provide analytics dashboards to track SMS campaign metrics like:
- Open rate
- Click-through rates
- Conversion rates
Integrating commercial text marketing with other channels
While direct text marketing brings good results, integrating it with other channels amplifies its impact and creates a unified marketing strategy.
Here’s how you can integrate it with other marketing channels:
- Email marketing: Use SMS to remind your customers about important emails such as event invitations, order confirmations, and newsletters. This integration also helps move leads through the funnel. For example, if you see a customer leaving a cart, you can follow up via email and then send a corresponding SMS to take them back to their cart directly.
Similarly, you can send SMS about upcoming sales after sending emails.
- Social Media: Social is a funnel magnet, and integrating SMS expands the reach of your campaigns. Encourage your SMS subscribers to follow your social media campaigns and vice versa. You can promote ‘signing up for SMS notifications’ through social media content about deals, early bird discounts, etc.
For example, send an SMS about ongoing sales or personalized offers and add a CTA in the end:
- In-app notifications: Combining SMS with your in-app notifications enhances the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.
You can leverage SMS to boost engagement with dual alerts for critical news and updates like “New feature alert! Log in to your app to explore our latest update.” These are also useful for reminding about in-app events like sales, expiring offers, appointments, etc.
Real-life examples of how text marketing helped drive revenue
Purity Coffee’s Mother’s Day campaign
Purity Coffee created a unique Mother’s Day campaign offering a 10% sitewide discount with free shipping. They strategically used an SMS campaign to maintain engagement for the campaign and increase conversion, combining it with email marketing.
Strategy
They announced the offer in early May through SMS, aiming to create awareness and give the TG plenty of time to order. The brand continued to send SMS and email reminders to order “the gift of healthy coffee” for their mother to engage the audience for the ongoing sale. They promoted the sale until midnight on Mother’s Day.
Leveraging early announcements and consistent reminders, they stayed at the top of their audience’s minds, and offering compelling discounts led to high conversions through this campaign.
The Vitamin Shoppe’s Father’s Day Campaign
The Vitamin Shoppe took Father’s Day and gave it a playful twist by sending their subscribers humorous dad jokes and offering discounts on men’s health items just for one day.
Strategy
They used light-hearted humor during Father’s Day without explicitly mentioning it to target emotions and create urgency by offering a discount only for the day. The audience resonated with the dad jokes, and the Vitamin Shoppe rightfully tapped into the Father’s Day spirit without mentioning it.
Seven text message strategy tips for small businesses
To maximize the impact of text marketing, you need to keep these things in mind besides using a multi-channel marketing mix and text marketing.
1. Obtain explicit consent for opt-in and honor opt-out
Remember that consumers are protected by law, which dictates that you must obtain permission before sending them texts. Always have a clear opt-in process in place and ensure that your customer is voluntarily subscribing to receive text messages. Similarly, if someone wants to opt-out, honor their request by offering them an easy-to-follow process for opting out.
This also generates credibility for your brand and shows that you value your customer’s choice.
For example: “Join our VIP list! Text JOIN to [number] to receive exclusive offers. Get 20% off your next purchase!”
2. Send relevant messages and keep them short and clear
Tailor your message, making it relevant and relatable to gain their attention. The case studies mentioned above are perfect examples of relevancy. Keep your message short and to the point. Another important thing to keep in mind is to ensure that your text message addresses the recipient’s needs.
For example:
3. Use automation to your advantage
Resource optimization is crucial for small businesses. Leverage automation to save time and resources and send SMS on time. Automation tools help you schedule messages, manage your subscriber list, and send trigger-based personalized SMSs.
For example, sending birthday messages to customers:
4. Send messages according to the customer journey
Send text messages based on the recipient’s customer journey and the stage they are in to make it relevant to them. Segment your audience and use automation tools to send targeted messages addressing their current needs.
For example, Signing up discounts for new customers, abandoned cart discounts and reminders for regaining customers.
5. Add a CTA
Ensure the SMS includes a clear CTA to guide the customers for the next action. Include short URLs and action words to guide them in taking action.
For example:
6. Timing is king
Timing is crucial to maximize the impact of a well-crafted message. For event-based text marketing, send SMS well before the event and send reminders to draw their attention. Avoid morning and night to send messages. Similarly, avoid sending messages when business is closed. Experiment with time, get data around the best time to send messages and optimize based on that.
7. Measure and optimize
Continuously track and analyze the performance of your text campaigns. Understand what is working and what needs optimization. Monitor metrics like CTR, open rates, and conversion rates and use the data to improve future campaigns. Conduct A/B testing with different messages, times, and offers to find the best combination.
Compliance considerations for commercial text marketing
Sprint Corporation was fined $7.5 million for failing to honor customer’s choice to opt out of their text marketing campaign. This emphasizes that if you don’t have the right to send messages to your customers, it will be considered intrusive and land you in legal trouble.
- Always obtain prior consent, in writing, from customers before adding them to the SMS marketing list
- Be clear about the nature of text messages and what they can expect
- Familiarize yourself with regulations like TCPA (Telephone Consumer Protection Act), which outlines restrictions on sending commercial text messages. It clearly outlines penalties for non-compliance, consent requirements, and unsubscribe procedures
- Maintain a record of how you received the customer’s consent
- Respect the unsubscribe requests from customers
- Protect subscriber’s data by implementing measures to safeguard against breaches, unauthorized access, and misuse of subscriber information
- Establish procedures to comply with text marketing regulations at all times
Conclusion
To cut through the noise and reach your customers, you have to be where they spend most of their time- on their mobiles. Text marketing has, over time, proved its efficacy in driving sales for businesses with its unmatched open rates and conversions.
Commercial text marketing is more than just sending messages; it requires a strategic approach that prioritizes compliance with regulations, relevance of texts, and value for the audience.
By understanding the advantages and best practices of commercial text marketing and combining them with a robust tool that streamlines your SMS campaigns, you get a ticket to success.
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