How to Do SMS Marketing Right: Tips for Successful SMS Campaigns

You might think that SMS marketing is dead, but with an open rate of 98%, it's far from dead.

As the world we live in is steadily moving toward becoming more mobile focused, therefore SMS is an amazing way to reach your target customers on-the-go!. 

SMS marketing campaigns have great potential in the burgeoning eCommerce industry as it is one of the most appropriate channels to engage with your mobile audience and drive sales.

Why SMS marketing Campaigns?

Unlike other marketing platforms, SMS marketing is the most preferred platform for the audience to share product queries or receive brand updates. With over 4.5 billion mobile users, SMS is the perfect channel for brands to deliver essential information to the customer.

Consider other prime perks of SMS Marketing campaigns:

• Unlike emails, well-planned SMS marketing campaigns have a whopping 98% open rate.
• 75% of customers are fine receiving SMS messages from brands (after they’ve opted in)
• It is an easy, fast, and reliable way to interact with your customers.
• It is an inexpensive method of communication in contrast to traditional marketing
• Consumers seem to redeem SMS-delivered coupons 10 times more than other types of coupons.

Top 10 SMS Marketing Tips

Consider the following SMS marketing tips to scale up your business:

Table of Contents

1. Ensure Opt-in choice for the audience

To avoid customer rejection amid the market competition is the biggest threat. The finest way to build a good relationship with your target audience is to give them a chance to opt-in. The SMS opt-in subscription ensures that the audience has shared consent to the brand for communication on the text. 

As a brand, it permits you to utilize customer's mobile numbers for personalized campaigns that include an offer or promotion which directly benefits the subscriber.

For example: “Hi, Good news for you! Subscribe to our weekly offers and get your 15% on your next purchase. Reply “WEEKLY LOVE" on 354635”

2. Clear CTA to encourage immediate sales

To approach your customer with clear content, next action steps, and adding call-to-action is a smart move. The content should be concise and precise such as "Sign up today for a free demo" is a direct CTA. The CTA must deliver a prompt and fascinating suggestion to the audience. 

If you constantly deliver the value customers are looking for in your SMS, they will never choose to Opt-out from the subscription and you will have them as loyal customers for lifetime.

For example: “Wedding Season on the way, Join our makeup tutorial online. Click here for a demo session”.

3. Track your campaigns and optimize

One of the mistakes marketers usually make is that they don’t estimate the value of the campaigns. 

For a successful campaign, it is necessary to measure by far how efficient your SMS marketing campaign has been for your brand and what you can optimize for the next campaign? How many customer responses did you get? What was your ROI?. These questions are vital to analyzing the outcome of campaigns.

 Also, try testing different offers, at various times of the day, days of the week, or target different segments of customers, to find which works best for your brand. 

4. Right timing is a bliss

Everybody knows that ‘Time is Money’, with SMS Marketing you can achieve this. To get the most out of your SMS campaign, you need to choose the right time to send it to your customers. 

If you want a prompt and positive reaction from the customers then make sure you leave your consumers enough time during the day to let them prepare their mind.

Never share promotional messages at the odd times such as late nights, early morning, or when they are commuting to and from their office because consumers will be the most ignorant due to other priorities.

5. Keep it short and concise

Text Messages with plain and precise information generally seek more attention than those with complicated and long details. So for the most economical campaign, the focus should be on choosing simple, direct, and concise words.

As a single SMS message consists of 160 characters, clear promotional messages play a crucial role to drive traffic and rack up sales. 

6. Set up a sense of urgency 

For an immediate action on your SMS campaign, share time-sensitive rewards or discounts to the audience which are overwhelming for them to buy. Consumers with FOMO will never miss something of their interest and will act accordingly.

To seek the attention of the customers, include time-sensitive phrases such as "limited period offer", "only one day left", "offer expires tomorrow".

For Example: “Buy it before it's gone. Last day for 20% off on shoes. Offer expires at 8 pm”

7. Personalized SMS for a better experience

As we know, relevant information and audience attention are two of the keys to a successful SMS campaign. A personalized SMS marketing campaign approach can improve conversion rate and build better relationships as it offers the most relevant information to the customer.

SMS personalization is one of the most engaging techniques in marketing and it helps marketers to stand out of the crowd with exclusive hyper personalized messages. 

For Example: “Hello Riya, looking for the party wear Sarees, we have a new Saree collection for you. Use the ”SAREENOW” to get 20% off, Shop now”

8. Enhance your omnichannel marketing

Contemporary audiences are omnichannel. It means that they sail between channels when interacting with an eCommerce brand and now many eCommerce marketers have started responding to that behavior. 

The main aim of an omnichannel strategy is to associate with several channels such as push, email, and social campaigns and bring them together to create a unified experience for the audience and lead to a higher retention rate.

For example, plenty of times, audiences abandon their shopping cart while checking the products; however, integrating SMS campaigns into your omnichannel strategy can amend the issue by sending a reminder text to the audience such as ‘complete your purchase.’ This text is sent automatically to the customer when your website or app notices a customer hasn’t completed their purchase.

9. SMS Friendly tone

To ensure better trust among customers it is important to use a friendly tone along with a personalized approach. Use everyday vocabulary, simple sentences, action verbs, and a personal style. 

Adding Emoji can make customer interaction more casual and informal. Kick out jargon and hype marketing for a familiar tone in the message. 

Share birthday or anniversary greetings messages with special discounts to make them feel you care. Such marketing strategies can be used to deliver delightful and memorable experiences to your customers via text.

For Example: Hi Vibha, excited about your birthday? 😊 Here we have a birthday coupon for you to boost your excitement. Use “BIRTHDAY” at the checkout.” 

10. Improve the efficiency of your campaign

Modern marketers have more access to customer data with the help of database marketing. Such marketing involves collecting accurate customer data like names, age, location, phone numbers, emails, addresses, transaction histories, etc.

To be the best in the market, you should improve your marketing efficiency by focusing on keeping the database updated as customers' phone numbers get changed and deleted all the time, so you must frequently check to make sure you're sending your messages to the right targeted people, not to the audience who are unlikely to respond.

Final Thoughts

In today’s time, SMS marketing is a great strategy to enhance your customer relationships and uplift your sales. As 50% of US consumers make direct purchases after they’re sent a personalized SMS text, thereby incorporating SMS marketing into your overall marketing mix can be one of the most favorable choices for your eCommerce business.

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