Little SMS school
The mobile phone is our era's predominant means of communication. It is used both at work and for personal and private matters.
It also means that when you communicate with your customers in that channel, you must have clear approval to do so and you must communicate relevant content
Four steps to SMS Marketing that gives effect
If you follow the steps below, you'll be well on your way to creating a powerful marketing channel straight into the hearts of your customers
And remember: SMS is and remains an effective channel, 90 percent of all SMS are read within 90 seconds!
Step 1: Valid numbers and data you own
Since the mobile phone is in many cases a tool that is used both privately and at work, it is essential that your business has a clear approval from the person you are going to send SMS to. One way to work effectively with it is forms on your website for customers/visitors to sign up for your SMS marketing.
When you have acceptance, in a welcome message you can repeat and be clear about how you will use SMS as a channel in your marketing. Tell them what kind of message and promotions the person can expect and how often you will send SMS, which you must also communicate in the web form of course.
💡 A tip for creating opportunities to expand your contact list is to work with campaigns where your current users can recruit friends/colleagues in exchange for some form of gratuity, for example a discount code.
Step 2: Relevant content
Knowing your customer and user is critical to successful marketing in general and via SMS in particular as it is a very personal channel. To get to know your users, short surveys, 2-3 questions via SMS could be a way to go. Be sure to "listen" to the responses, document and group your contact lists into relevant groups.
Diversify your way of communicating, it makes your marketing more accurate and relevant to the recipient. Separate the type of offer/information you send in SMS or e-mail. It should not be exactly the same content in different channels. Customized and "fast" offers are suitable for SMS as well as different types of reminders and possible late changes for example for an activity. This means that you can advantageously work with clear call-to-actions in SMS.
The tone of your SMS should be personal without being familiar. Avoid having a buddy tone and don't use emojis. Professionalism in the content is important!
Step 3: Content adapted for SMS
An SMS has a limit of 160 characters, when you exceed 160 characters, two or more SMS are automatically combined into one long one in the user's phone. This means that you must be short and concise in your communication. Work with your texts so that you communicate the absolutely most important thing without loosing the message.
Links work perfectly well in SMS and thus you have a golden opportunity to drive traffic to campaign pages with complete information and clear offers to make a purchase, answer a survey or register for an event. Make sure these web pages are mobile friendly!
You must also ensure in each SMS that the customer has the opportunity to unsubscribe from future mailings.
Step 4: Statistics to develop content and customer relationship
With digital and web-adapted tools comes great opportunities to follow the user's behaviour. This means that you can get to know the customer even a little better for each action he takes.
Be thorough in analyzing your statistics to be able to develop and refine both your ways of communicating and your relationship with the user.
It can be about learning everything from what type of content and offer gives the best effect to investigating which times and which days are best suited for mailing to your specific target groups.