Dummies’ Guide for SMS Marketing

Dummies’ Guide for SMS Marketing 

1. Introduction
2. What is SMS Marketing?
3. Why Does SMS Marketing Work?
4. Types of SMS Marketing Campaigns
5. 7 Benefits of SMS Marketing
6. Importance of Compliance in SMS Marketing
7. Top 5 Advanced SMS Marketing Features
8. 4 Metrics to Measure in SMS Marketing
9. 5 Common Mistakes to Avoid in SMS Marketing
10. Final Thoughts

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Introduction

Do you know SMS open rate is estimated to be 98% whereas the same for email is 20%? 

Businesses across the globe are using SMS as an integral part of their multi-channel marketing today. Providing personalized and targeted communication, SMS and text message marketing enables you to reach 3.7 billion mobile users around the world. Needless to say SMS marketing helps you to increase brand loyalty, drive engagement, and create a top-of-mind awareness (TOMA). While you email inbox might be overflowing, you always look at your phone once you receive a text. And, that’s why SMS marketing succeeds in engaging with customers. 

In this blog, you will get to know about the basics of SMS marketing, types and benefits of SMS marketing, compliance requirements, salient features of SMS marketing, metrics to measure, and use cases. 

What is SMS Marketing?

SMS marketing is exactly what it sounds like. You use SMS to send out coupons, alerts, promotions, and updates to your customers. Writing effective SMS requires you to be wordsmith as you have only 160 characters to play with. 

SMS marketing can be personalized based on where you prospect is in the funnel. SMS marketing can be done only after obtaining permission from your customers. Businesses usually get this explicit permission via online opt-in. Permission-based SMS marketing targets those who have expressed their interest in your product or service. 

On the other hand, there is something called interruption marketing. It basically tries to be aggressive in its attempt to make a sale. As a result, all of us receive unwanted messages every day.

Why Does SMS Marketing Work?

Would you believe that 90% of the recipients will open an SMS within three seconds of receiving it? This is one of the reasons why SMS marketing isn’t dead yet. Here are some of the reasons why SMS marketing works even today:

• It is in-built: No matter whether you have an android smartphone or iphone, every device comes with in-built SMS app. Today 66.53% of the world population has a mobile device. Think how convenient it is for you to reach out to them with a simple SMS .
• It delivers instantly: Text messages are delivered in split seconds unless there is a network issue. Isn’t that a powerful feature? You can run A/B testing to understand the exact day and time that can give you a better open rate.
• Tracking the ROI: If you are investing in SMS marketing, you will definitely want to know the ROI of it. Smart analytics helps you to track which messages and campaigns are bringing in most of the leads. 
• It is permission-based: Since you send SMS to those who have already opted in, you are reaching out to those who are interested in your product or service. This eliminates the chances of you wasting effort in communicating with low-quality leads. 

Types of SMS Marketing Campaigns

Types of SMS Marketing: Transactional and Promotional

Based on the purpose it caters to, SMS marketing can be divided into different types. While SMS marketing might seem to be a one-way communication, there are plenty of ways in which you can engage with your audience. Here are some of the types of SMS marketing that you can do. 

• Broadcast SMS: A broadcast SMS is the one that sends relevant information to your customers. You can use this kind of SMS to share tips, advice, tricks, and so on. In order to be able to excel at broadcast SMS, you must be consistent in running outbound campaigns.
• Information Collection: An information collection campaign helps you to fetch information that you don’t have about your customers. This kind of campaign can help you to engage with your customers.
•  Appointment Reminders: With appointment reminder SMS campaign, you will be able to remind users of their appointments. Effective SMS marketing providers will be able to help your customers to confirm or reschedule appointments as well.  
• Election SMS Campaign: Election SMS campaign enables users to vote for candidates and this determine a winner. In such campaigns, users usually do the voting by sending an sms to a short code.
• Text for More: SMS marketing empowers your users to know more information as well. To receive such information, you can ask them to send a text to a short code. For efficient engagement, you can send your website link or phone number along with the information.
• Opinion Poll: Opinion poll campaign works best when you are trying to get an opinion on the product or service you offer. Such kind of SMS marketing campaigns target existing users who are already acquainted with the product or service you offer. 
• SMS Contest: SMS marketing enables you to run a contest as well. The users can be asked to send a keyword to a shortcode in order to enter the contest. You can continue being in touch with them with SMS. However, you will need a disclaimer in that case.

 7 Benefits of SMS Marketing

Have you ever counted the number of times you check your phone a day? An average person would do that 85 times. What does that mean for SMS marketing?  It means you can leave an impact in the subconscious mind of your consumers with consistent messages. 

• Startling Open Rate: In this blog, we have mentioned this earlier as well. SMS marketing performs better when it comes to tracking the open rate. The best part of SMS is that it allows you to see a snippet even when you don’t choose to open an SMS. While emails are opened based on their subject lines, SMS doesn’t have any such thing. 
• Low Competition: Everyone you see around is trying to sell you one thing or the other. Consumers today suffer from marketing message fatigue indeed. When you run an SMS marketing campaign, you use one of the most underutilized channels. Do you know only 21% of the brands effectively leverage SMS ?
• Increased Engagement: The right SMS at the right time helps you to engage with your users. To make the most out of your SMS marketing campaign, you should enhance your SMS with rich media content. With this, you will be able to attain brand awareness and word-of-mouth (WOM) referrals as well. 
• Reach More People: As about everyone owns a smartphone today, chances are high that you will be able to reach more people. SMS marketing empowers you with the ability to reach those without an internet connection as well.  
• Personalized Communication: With SMS marketing, every number is a different number for you. They are at a different stage of the funnel and have been through a journey. Once you analyze the consumer personas, you will be able to understand their motivation. SMS marketing enables you to send personalized messages utilizing this motivation. 
• Immediacy: If you are looking for immediacy, SMS marketing is one of the most effective channels that you will ever find. Whether you want to send occasion-specific message or discounts or deals, SMS can help you to have that immediate impact. 
• Easy to Track: Key metrics like CTR, deliverability, and open rate can be easily tracked when it comes to SMS marketing. To understand the effectiveness of your SMS marketing campaign, you must keep an eye on metrics such as click-through rates, opt-out rate, response rate. You should also measure your ROI to measure the effectivity of channels. 

Importance of Compliance in SMS Marketing

Well, to begin with, this blog will cover the fundamentals of compliance required for SMS marketing. SMS marketing can make your customers happy in terms of information or discount and you in terms of ROI. However, you need to comply with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) in order to prevent your texts appearing as spam. Here are some of the elements of TCPA that you must know before getting started with SMS marketing:

• Get Written Consent: Consent lies at the heart of TCPA. And, that too, written. As per the law, you require written consent from the users before adding them to any SMS marketing campaign. This consent can be obtained via web opt in, online form submission, and texting a keyword. The TCPA requires you to provide the user with a clear consent form meaning that it shouldn’t be buried in the terms and conditions. Also, it can’t be made mandatory for users to sign up for text messages in order to be able to purchase goods and services. 
• Consent for Imported Contacts: You must obtain consent for any contact list that will receive text messages as a part of your SMS marketing campaign. This means that your previous contact list needs to provide you with consent before you add them to campaign. The idea is to receive explicit written consent from each and every number that will be a part of your SMS marketing.
• Call-to-Action Guidelines: TCPA requires you to clearly mention the type of SMS you will be sending. Whether you want to send coupons or reminders, you should clearly mention that while asking consent from users. You are expected to add terms and conditions under the CTA. T&C must include details such as brand identity, customer care information, opt-out instructions, and related product description. 
• The Confirmation Text: After a user opts in, your first text must be a compliance message. While confirming the opt-in, this message should include your identity, validation, opt-out instruction, and message frequency as well. In addition, it should provide the user with instructions related to help and data rates (if applicable).

Top 5 Advanced SMS Marketing Features

Advanced SMS marketing features can help you to set yourself apart from the competition. These are extremely easy to use as well. Here are some of them:

• 2-way messaging: An efficient SMS marketing provider will be able to help you with 2-way messaging. This feature helps you in resolving customer issues and ensure satisfaction.
• Scheduled Text Messages: Based on engagement metrics, you can set date and time for your outbound texts. Automating the process helps you to save time and effort.
• User Segmentation: User segmentation is a crucial part of your SMS marketing efforts. You can build relevant campaigns based on your target audience.
• Data Collection: If you are planning to collect information from users, your SMS marketing provider can store the data in their server. This helps you in making data-driven decision in future campaigns. 
• Measuring Success: With this advanced feature, you will be able to visualize your subscribers, track open rates and click rates, and measure the ROI as well.

4 Metrics to Measure in SMS Marketing

Marketers love metrics. And, they should. Tracking SMS marketing KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) helps you to realign your future campaign for better results. Here are 7 metrics that you should keep an eye on while doing SMS marketing:

• List Growth: Having a huge subscriber list isn’t enough anymore. You must calculate the rate at which your subscriber list is growing. Based on your convenience, you can do this once a month or year. 

How to Calculate: Find the difference between the number of subscribers at the end and at the beginning of the month (or year). Divide this number by the number of subscribers at the beginning of the month (or year). 

• Rate of Unsubscribing: To be successful in SMS marketing, you must find out the attrition rate. Attrition rate is nothing but the rate at which users are unsubscribing. A higher attrition rate means your messages lack value and correct frequency. How to Calculate: To find the attrition rate, you will have to divide the number of opt-outs by number of subscribers at the start of the month (or year).
• Rate of Response: Response rate helps you to measure the efficacy of your SMS. As you measure this, you will be able to know whether your subscribers are taking any action after receiving an SMS. 

How to Calculate: Response rate can be calculated by dividing the total number of offers redeemed by the total number of offers delivered. 

• ROI: Tracking ROI can help you to measure if your SMS marketing efforts are effective enough or not. A positive ROI means that you are in the right direction. How to Calculate: To find out the ROI, first calculate the difference between the amount earned from and spent on SMS marketing. Now divide this figure by amount spent. 

5 Common Mistakes to Avoid in SMS Marketing

SMS can be a powerful tool to engage with your customers. However, you need to make sure that you are not committing these common mistakes:

• Unsolicited SMS: Would you like receiving promotions that you didn’t sign up for? Probably not. Your users don’t like that either. Use an opt-in form to obtain permission before sending any promotional text.
• Invalid Numbers: Spending money on sending texts to invalid numbers is of no use. It is literally a waste of money since you are not able to reach the intended person. The best way to avoid this is to grow your subscriber list organically and send SMS to verified numbers.
• Relevant Content: SMS marketing doesn’t work when you keep sending the same message to your users. To make the most out of it, you need to send time-sensitive, personalized, and relevant content that creates urgency.
• Timing: Whether it is SMS marketing or email marketing, timing plays a crucial role. Send text to your subscribers based on their time zone. You can use to 9-to-9 rule here. It is not recommended that you send text to your subscribers before 9 in the morning or after 9 at night.  
• CTA and Long Messages:  SMS marketing goes into vain when you don’t include CTA and send long spam messages. Send concise messages with a clear and single CTA.

Final Thoughts

The first step of being successful at SMS marketing is to adhere to the local regulations.  In addition, you should have your appropriate shortcode so that your messages are not blocked. An effective SMS will contain a clear CTA, relevant information, and engaging content. While running SMS marketing campaign, you will be continuously measure what is not working for you and align your campaign accordingly. Lastly, you must deliver the message according to the time zone of your subscribers.