Did you know that SMS messages are received by most recipients in just a few minutes? A short message about, for example, a limited-time promotion, can effectively encourage customers to take advantage of the offer, and even attract new interested people. No wonder, then, that companies are increasingly eager to create marketing campaigns based on this form of contact. Well-constructed and personalized SMS marketing helps increase conversions and sales. Wondering how to use it in your business and what you need it for? This article is just for you!
What are the advantages of SMS marketing
Compared to other communication channels, messages sent to cell phones have many advantages, but it’s only up to you to take advantage of this. Here are the biggest advantages of SMS marketing:
Direct, quick contact with customers
Many people can’t imagine living without a phone and it’s always the first thing they have to carry with them. Therefore, a sizable portion of recipients read the SMS message almost immediately. Very often, therefore, such campaigns are used to announce some promotions that end within a few hours or days.
Lower costs
Advertising on TV or social media is much more expensive than SMS. Of course, everything also depends on the number and frequency of sending such messages, so a good way is to set specific times and frequency, e.g. 4 times a month, at the time of the audience’s greatest activity – by the way, you will get them used to expecting a message from you at this time. It is worth keeping this in mind if you are hesitating which form to choose and what budget to allocate.
High readability
The SMS goes directly to the recipient without any need to log on to some site. This means that SMS will always be opened by many more people than, for example, email. In addition, SMS content is short and usually very specific, which encourages additional customers.
To whom to send SMS marketing messages to make your campaign effective
Of course, you can simply set up a mailing to all your contacts, but you’ll see much more effectiveness when you customize your ads individually for each customer. Only with personalization can you be sure that you are targeting a marketing campaign to people who might actually be interested in it. Without marketing automation and segmentation, which allows you to more accurately personalize content, your ad will go to the wrong groups. For example, by launching an SMS campaign to everyone about a special 20% discount on selected women’s dresses, you will also target a man who bought a blouse from you a few years ago, which he gave as a gift, and is himself only interested in men’s fashion. An SMS will also be sent to a woman who does not wear dresses and is looking for sports clothes, but so far has not received any information about current promotions from this category. This is certainly not a successful campaign, and even if you gain new customers, you will also lose many regular and loyal ones. A lot of people will find your ads intrusive and unsuitable for their needs, so they will withdraw their consents to receive messages and leave for your competitors. So what can you do to encourage existing customers and reach new ones?
Use personalization and customize SMS to your recipients
Personalized marketing helps tailor campaigns to customers and send a specific message to selected groups. The key with personalization is segmentation, which assigns a particular person to a segment based on their activity. In this way, for example, you can create a campaign just for regular customers, thereby increasing interest in a particular ad. Personalization also allows you to send messages with spaces automatically filled in with the data of a specific recipient (e.g. name and surname). Such actions will increase conversions and sales on your site. Examples of personalized messages you can send:
Notification of a special discount with a discount code
Using segmentation and personalization, you can create a message such as: “[Name], we have something especially for you! With the code [Code] you will shop [Percentage]% cheaper!”, and thanks to automation and downloading data from the database, the program will adjust the content itself. What’s more, you can even divide the recipients into groups and give regular customers a code for 20% off, and others only for 15%.
Information about the progress of the transaction
To the person who made the purchase, you can send a short SMS with information about the correct payment and the possibility of tracking the completion of the order. For this purpose, we can write a message: “Thank you for placing your order. [Name] you can check what stage your order is at by clicking here.”
Reminder for abandoned shopping cart
SMS are also useful if you want to reach a user who has for some reason abandoned the process on your site. A message that reads ” [Name] complete your shopping now and receive a 5% discount on your next order” is sure to encourage some to return.
A message about product tailored to external factors
SMS reaches recipients very quickly. Combining it with iPresso Satellite’s functionality allows you to tailor your campaign to events beyond your control, such as weather conditions or currency exchange rate changes. So you can send customers who live in areas where it’s raining today a message like this: “[Name] the weather today is bad? Buy our rain jackets 10% off with code [Code], and no rain will surprise you!”.
Don’t make these mistakes
You already know how to create messages for your recipients, but we have a few more tips for you. SMS marketing is not complicated at all, but especially with your first campaigns, you can forget important rules:
Don’t create overly long messages that will be split into multiple SMS
Remember that SMS have a limited number of characters. After all, you don’t want the most important content to be sent only the second or third time. Divided into parts, the information will be less readable for the recipient, plus it may make him miss the most crucial link or promotional code. It is best to prepare a few simple sentences, or you can add one specific link.
Don’t send SMS too often
Imagine that you set up a campaign, counting down the hours until the end of the special action, and customers will receive such an SMS exactly every 60 minutes throughout the day. At first, this may interest and attract, but after a few such messages, most will start blocking information from you and will consider your company pushy. On top of that, you will still unnecessarily expose yourself to incurring huge costs, instead of doing a more thoughtful and specific campaign.
Don’t write complicated sentences that are not understandable to the recipient
That you will adhere to the limitations of characters per message is one key rule, but in addition, you must not create maximally long phrases. Remember that most recipients will read an SMS message at speed, so include only the most important information for your customers.
Summary
Personalizing SMS marketing allows you to send the right message for the right person. In addition to the standard information about the progress of the transaction or thanks for agreeing to receive promotional materials, you can send a discount code selected for a specific group, or even a reminder for a person who has interrupted a purchase. In this way, a bond with the user is built, and the potential customer’s involvement and interest in the company increases. Targeted messages to a specific group of people result in increased conversions and sales. We hope that now you too will use segmentation and content personalization in your SMS campaigns.
If you’d like to learn about various marketing automation tools that allow you to personalize messages quickly and easily, among other things, we encourage you to take advantage of a 30-day trial access to the iPresso platform.
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