SMS marketing services are an effective way to engage with your customers, drive more traffic, and get your sales soaring. Smartphone usage has skyrocketed, and SMS marketing allows you to reach a diverse audience immediately. In fact, we’d bet that you’re reading this on your smartphone right now.
When it’s done right, SMS marketing can be just as effective as email marketing. When they’re BOTH done right, well, you’ll be pretty much unstoppable. Dive in and let’s explore some best practices to help you supercharge your engagement and revenue.
What Gr8 SMS Marketing Services Can Do for Your Brand
Email marketing is great for conversion, but text message marketing can do wonders for your bottom line, too. There’s also a good chance that your marketing SMSes will be read instantly. In fact, over 70% of people check a new text message within five minutes.
Not only is text message marketing a quick way to reach customers, but it’s also incredibly focused. This makes it ideal for highlighting a single, strong offer such as a product launch or promotion. And, because SMSes are so immediate, they’ll ensure that your customers don’t miss out on anything important.
The Effectiveness of SMS Marketing Services In Numbers
SMS marketing services can be integrated into your automated email flows or used as standalone campaigns to highlight new items or time-sensitive discounts.
Just take a look at how SMS marketing can help your business generate revenue:
- According to Simple Texting, 55% of customers are currently subscribed to receive texts from between 1 and 5 businesses.
- What’s more, 74% of business owners say campaigns that incorporate SMS marketing have stronger conversion rates.
- According to a 2023 Klaviyo Survey, 73% of respondents purchased as a result of a text message from a brand. What’s more, Klaviyo reported that the average SMS campaign has an 8.5% click rate.
- A 2021 SMS Benchmarks Report by Attentive found that 96% of marketers who use text messaging reported an increase in revenue.
- The same 2021 Attentive report stated that 63% of consumers who subscribe to at least one brand's SMS marketing program have purchased from an SMS within the last three months.
There are thousands of statistics that highlight why you should be adding SMS marketing services to your marketing calendar. Check out our case studies to see how we’ve helped clients send their ROI into the stratosphere with SMS marketing.
How to Integrate SMS Marketing Into Your Marketing Program
Today’s consumers don’t want to be fed the same messaging that their family and friends are receiving. Instead, they want messaging that’s tailored to their specific needs. Like your email campaigns, the more personalized and relevant your text message marketing is, the better. And, when these two channels are combined, they work in tandem to skyrocket your ROI and get you the results you’re looking for.
There are so many benefits to integrating your SMS and email marketing programs, including:
- Recovering lost revenue: Integrating SMSes into your browse and cart abandonment flows can be very effective when it comes to encouraging recipients to return and complete their purchase.
- Keeping customers updated: SMS is a great, immediate way to let customers know the status of their current orders.
- Making promotions unmissable: The immediacy of a text is one of its greatest qualities. Highlighting any time-sensitive promotions via text will ensure that your customers never miss out.
- Requesting feedback: After customers have received their orders, you can request feedback via SMS, which can increase your chances of getting a review.
- Making announcements: As well as notifying your subscribers about sales, SMSes are a great way to announce any new products or services.
Having said all that, there is a caveat - SMS marketing takes effort and expertise for it to really be impactful. Luckily, we happen to know an SMS marketing agency filled with experienced, passionate professionals who are ready to help you create the most effective SMS marketing program possible.
Dos and Don’ts of Text Message Marketing
As we mentioned earlier, when it’s done right, obtaining SMS marketing services can be incredibly impactful for your business. But that’s the thing - it has to be approached correctly to generate engagement and revenue. Here are some of our biggest yays and nays when it comes to SMS marketing.
DO
- A/B test your SMS marketing campaigns
A/B tests aren’t just for emails! Testing things like send times and personalized content in your SMS campaigns will give you a much clearer idea of your audience’s preferences. You can then incorporate these preferences going forward to optimize engagement. - Communicate regularly with your customers
Cadence matters in text message marketing. Ideally, you should be communicating with your customers via text 2-3 times per month, but be sure not to spam them. - Follow the correct SMS opt-in process
Always ask for consent from new subscribers before sending them promotional SMSes. Not following the right processes can result in significant fines and unsubscribe rates. - Keep your content short
Always keep your text messages under 160 characters to get the attention of your subscribers, fast. - Always identify yourself
Don’t forget to include your brand name in all of your SMS messages - this adds credibility to every SMS campaign. - Ask your customers to save your number
When customers save your SMS marketing number as a contact, it ensures that they’ll continue receiving text messages from your brand going forward. - Create exclusive discounts for SMS subscribers
This is a great way to ensure that current subscribers stay engaged, and entice potential subscribers to sign up for your texts.
DONT
- Text customers at inappropriate times
As SMS is more direct, it can be a little more invasive than email. With this in mind, it’s important that you avoid sending texts too early in the morning or too late at night. - Spam customers
Stay in touch with text subscribers regularly, but avoid SMSing them more than a few times a month or it could come off as spam. - Send long text messages
Sure, you can go over 160 characters and pay for the cost of two text messages, but the shorter and snappier your content is, the more likely your subscribers will be to engage. - Text customers who haven’t opted in
Ever. - Forget to include ‘opt-out’ messaging in regular SMS campaigns
This is vital in terms of compliance.
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How SMS Marketing And Email Marketing Work Together To Drive Sales
You shouldn’t view text and email marketing as separate platforms. Instead, think of them as two halves of a potentially powerful whole.
SMS is great for reminders and immediacy, while email marketing is ideal for sending longer, more informative content.
SMS can also help encourage faster actions from subscribers, especially if there are limited-time offers or promotions involved.
Plus, you can use email marketing to drive signups for text message marketing, and vice versa, if you have SMS subscribers who haven’t yet joined your email marketing program.
Before You Get Started
Another important consideration when it comes to SMS marketing is choosing an SSP (SMS service provider). Your email service provider may already have SMS functionality, but many do not.
From Twilio to Klaviyo, Attentive, and every SSP in-between, we’ve worked with them all and we’d be happy to help you find the right platform for your business.
Once you’ve chosen your SSP, you’ll need to ensure that your SMS and email marketing campaigns are effectively integrated. Then, you’ll need to build a data-driven SMS marketing strategy, craft, test, and tweak every single SMS campaign, and constantly monitor deliverability to ensure that each text is sent correctly.
And let’s face it, you don’t exactly have time for all that when you’re running a business. That’s where we come in. So chat to this SMS marketing agency today, and we’ll show you how we can skyrocket your revenue and engagement. TTYL!
