Integrate SMS Marketing With the Rest of Your Campaign
Do a 360 right now and you’ll likely notice that many people are absorbed in their mobile devices. It has become the norm to multitask with a phone in one hand, so it makes sense to incorporate text communication into your outbound marketing strategy. SMS marketing alone can be a successful tool for your business, but using it in conjunction with other marketing tools can take your business to a new level.
Here are five ways you can use SMS to boost your marketing efforts if you integrate it with different channels such as website, email, social media, ads, print, and radio/TV.
1. Have a Successful Call-to-Action
Text messages are instant. Including a call-to-action on a print or digital ad, prompting people to text in, can deliver quick results, i.e. SMS subscribers or conversions. Providing this call-to-action via SMS makes it easier for people to act in the moment, before they see another brand’s pitch.
SMS marketing makes it simple for customers to engage with your brand through different channels at once.
2. Ability to Cross Promote
Each marketing channel can serve a different purpose and can reach different demographics. Include your SMS marketing program in your newsletters or social media accounts with an incentive to receive exclusive offers through the program. If you develop a contest campaign on one channel, let followers know that text subscribers will get additional bonuses or an inside scoop into your events.
Those who follow you on other channels already show an interest in your brand, so they may want to become more intimately involved with your brand through text messages.
3. Generate Unique Content
Make every channel valuable. Rather than copy and paste the same message onto each channel, create unique content for each. It is important to develop a different strategy for each channel because not only does the formatting change throughout channels, but audiences may vary per channel.
When you structure content according to your audience’s preferences and engagement styles, you remain exclusive.
4. Complement Other Channels
Once you begin to understand which channels see the most conversions, traffic, or engagement, you can scope out better ways to improve your marketing plan. If there is a specific channel that you wish to promote on a slow day or to improve engagement through it, introduce your text program on the channel and increase visibility.
Offer exclusive coupons that can be redeemed once a follower opts-in or enters a campaign-specific keyword.
5. Target Frequency of Subscribers’ Sales Texts
If possible, figure out which followers follow which channels in order to prevent over-saturating their experience with your brand. Text marketing allows you to filter people into different subscriber lists so that you can launch an SMS marketing campaign according to their interaction with your brand through different channels. For those that follow you on every channel, send them a minimal amount of sales texts and instead build brand loyalty by engaging through friendly conversation or sending last minute updates about the brand.
