SMS Marketing: DigiDwar
Marketing your business can consume a significant amount of time and resources. Given social media algorithm updates as well as the sheer volume of emails which most people receive on a daily basis, it can be difficult to gain popularity through your marketing efforts as an independent retailer. SMS marketing in Digital Marketing, also known as text message marketing, is indeed a simple way to reach out to your customers while generating a much higher ROI through various SMS marketing platforms and that is why SMS marketing courses are in trend. Customers like it, too, with 70% saying it's a good way for businesses to get their attention by following the rules of SMS marketing. There are various uses of SMS marketing but let’s understand first, what is SMS marketing.
What is Mobile Marketing?
The process of promoting and advertising to consumers through the use of smartphones and tablets is known as mobile marketing in digital marketing. To deliver more appropriate and timely ads, mobile advertising strategies typically make use of mobile device features like push notifications or location awareness. According to the data, mobile devices account for a sizable and growing portion of online activity. Globally, there are more than 6 billion mobile phone users, with subscriptions expected to increase by "several hundred million" in the coming years.
What is SMS Marketing?
SMS marketing is defined as short message service marketing. This is a marketing technique that sends text messages to customers to communicate offers, updates, and reminders. This communication could take the form of a one-on-one conversation between a staff member and a customer, an automated text triggered by a customer action, or even a mass text sent to a group of clients who have opted in to receive texts from your company.
Types of SMS Marketing
Following are the all types of SMS Marketing for business:
Special Offers and Discounts
SMS messages with promotional deals and discounts are among today's most popular marketing techniques. These are messages sent directly to customers about product and/or service deals, discounts, clearances, and special sales. Since they are time-sensitive, these promotions typically generate a strong sense of urgency.
SMS Coupons
SMS coupons are messages that are regularly sent through Multimedia Messaging Service, or "MMS" for short. These messages are very similar to promotional offers and discount messages. They include a discount on a product or service offered by the company for which they signed into receiving SMS marketing messages.
Text to Win Competitions
A campaign is launched in this type of SMS marketing inside which clients can enter a contest easily by responding to a sms sent by your company. After the contest deadline has passed, a winner is chosen at random. Many businesses use SMS marketing to give away gift cards, free gifts, and even complimentary services to winners.
Flash Sales
This is one of those types of SMS promotion strategy that is only active for a short period of time. In most cases, it includes a limited quantity of a service or product provided by a business. The time factor distinguishes this type of promotion from a traditional sale.
Loyalty Programs
Loyalty programmes are designed to motivate customers to buy something or to recommend referrals in exchange for free products or a variety of discounts when certain "milestones" are reached. These are extremely effective at developing relationships over time.
Notifications and Alerts
SMS can be used to send various types of notifications and alerts. These include standard updates about business hours, special events at the company, new product arrivals, new services, restock alerts, standard company updates, sales and even emergency alerts.
In most cases, a short message is sent along with a shortened URL that the recipient can click on to learn more about what is offered or stated in the notification.
SMS Marketing Strategy and Tips
Offer Incentives
Entice your customers by sending coupons or deals through the use of text to those who sign up for your SMS service. Customers will feel as if they are a member of a private club or community as a result of this.
Keep your message to the point
This is an important marketing strategy as over 90% of SMS messages are read within three minutes, making it a personal way to connect with your customers. With only 160 characters to work with, make sure your message is clear and precise but also provides high value so that your client is motivated to respond positively.
Call to action
An SMS campaign is influenced by two factors: the keyword and a short code.If you want customers to participate in a campaign by texting your keyword to a five-digit number (your short code), keep these two things stand out and aren't not hidden in the message.
Include MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service)
If you're having trouble with the 160-character limit, send video clips as well as images to your customers through MMS. You can even include YouTube URLs to give your customers a visual representation of your company.
Make competitions more interactive
Include your social media or website links in your automated response when a customer comes in a contest or opt in. It's a quick and easy way to direct customers to your different pages and tempt them to click on the links.
Text your customers to encourage them
Users can be encouraged to share your social media links via text messages. Word of mouth is the most effective form of advertising, so reward your top referrers with a special offer or free product.
Develop a sense of urgency
Including an expiration date encourages clients to respond more quickly, allowing you to achieve results or obtain information as quickly as possible.
Make your offer exclusive if you text it to your customers
This SMS marketing strategy includes the fact that the deal is available to all VIP text customers to make them feel as though they are a part of something special. If the offer was open to all, becoming a subscriber would be less intriguing.
Use your texts as social media hooks
Through the texts you send to your customers, promote any contests or cash prizes you're running on your social media pages. You can engage them further on those pages, but you must instruct them there with your text.
Ask questions & distribute surveys
Obtain information about your customers' thoughts on a product or idea, or whether you should start a business page on a new social media platform. Once you have the results, send them to your customers via text message or post them on one of your social media pages as well as guide your subscribers to it.
Send a text message in response to an email
Both of these messages are typically delivered to your customers' mobile devices these days, increasing response rates as well as engaging them in conversation.
Benefits of SMS marketing
Following are the benefits of SMS marketing for business:
Create Loyal Customers
SMS marketing is an effective method of engaging and retaining customers. When necessary, provide your customers promotions as well as information about your company. This makes your customers/clients feel valued by keeping them at the frontline of your business. The more you give, the more you will receive.
Increase word of mouth
SMS can be used to engage existing customers as well as drive new business to your company. If you have something valuable to offer your customers, they will tell their family, friends, and colleagues about it. SMS promotes word-of-mouth marketing by providing instant communication. The business which uses the best practices of SMS marketing gets these benefits.
Improved communication
Communication is essential for any long-term relationship. When it comes to strengthening these relationships, SMS marketing can be extremely beneficial. SMS is a direct message from you to your target audience. Let them in on the secret sale, send a simple thank you message after just a purchase, notify them of any sales/promotional offers, notify them when their delivery is ready, and so on.
Quick and efficient
Best practices of SMS marketing for business helps you to reach a large number of individuals all at once. Text messaging is a fast marketing tool that gets your message to the right people at the right time.
Option to Opt-In
Building your database correctly is essential, not only for data security reasons, but also because by having your customers sign up to receive messages from you, you have already begun the sales process. These opt-ins are qualified existing or potential customers who want to hear from you and you should not let them down.
Option to Opt-out
Every SMS Campaign should include the option for customers to opt out of receiving future text messages. According to data protection laws, if you contact someone via text, they must be allowed to unsubscribe via text as well. The main advantage of this is that you won't be sending unwanted texts to those who are completely disinterested.
Reasonably priced
SMS marketing is indeed a low-cost method of communication when compared to traditional marketing. It will assist your company in tightening its budget. Many public and private companies save money every day by sending out text messages instead of letters or brochures; this is also good for the environment!
Include in your Marketing Campaigns
One significant benefit of SMS Marketing is the potential it really has when merged into any of your marketing campaigns. It is well known that social media as well as traditional media are not always the most effective ways to reach your customers on time. Simply integrate SMS into these other marketing methods to get the message directly to your customers, making sure that they are aware of what you have to offer.
SMS Marketing Platforms
Following is the list of the best SMS marketing platforms:
Text Magic
TextMagic is one of the best SMS marketing platforms and is the right choice for you if you're looking for an all-in-one SMS marketing software with a clear pricing plan that allows you to send messages globally. TextMagic's unique feature is its global sending coverage, which extends from Afghanistan to the US Virgin Islands. You can get a simple quote for your SMS campaigns by using their pricing calculator. Simply enter the location of your campaign and the number of messages to calculate the total cost of your campaign.
Simple Texting
SimpleTexting is a text message marketing platform that does it all. All of their plans include unlimited keywords. They also include all of the usual SMS marketing features. As a result, they are an excellent choice for a text message marketing platform. SimpleTexting allows you to have multiple keywords for your phone numbers at little or no extra cost. Other platforms' base plans typically have a limit of this number.
EZ Texting
EZ Texting claims to be the market's leading SMS marketing platform. And, unlike Attentive, they have straightforward pricing plans. This SMS marketing software provides dedicated 5-6 digit phone numbers. These phone numbers include unlimited keywords, guaranteed delivery, and low messaging fees. You can also have a 10-digit toll-free number dedicated to your brand.
Attentive Mobile
Attentive Mobile is the most complete text message marketing solution and a great SMS marketing software. In addition, they claim to generate "an average of 20.5% of total internet revenue for modern e-commerce brands." They provide all of the features required for an entire text message marketing platform. Attentive is a comprehensive text messaging platform which is focused towards eCommerce development.
Slick Text
SlickText is a feature-rich all-in-one SMS marketing software platform. Within your dashboard, you can create surveys and questionnaires. You can also give them keywords and shortcodes to tempt customers to take them. SlickText provides survey analytics and reports. As a result, you can analyse your customer feedback.
Learn everything there Is to know about SMS Marketing in Digital Marketing with this SMS Marketing Course. SMS marketing for business is one of the major elements of any larger marketing strategy. Learn the fundamentals of SMS marketing with DigiDwar's best SMS Marketing course in Delhi. SMS Marketing for business can help you grow and has a high potential for lead generation. Businesses use this to engage customers all the time.