Marketers are almost always told: Go where your customer is. For many marketers, this means catching up with their potential clientele on Facebook or Instagram, or even by email. Sadly, text message marketing doesn’t even come into the picture for many marketers. This is too bad because pretty much everyone has a mobile phone. If you’re not sure how to leverage SMS marketing to its fullest advantage, then you’ll want to pay attention to the following four tips.
Onboarding New Customers
These days, it’s standard practice to follow up with new clients via email. However, because this is standard practice, it’s also a good way to get ignored by your clients. According to the Guardian, the average employee gets over 120 emails per day. In light of this, it’s likely that your email will get ignored. By sending your onboarding message via text, you’re lessening the likelihood of being ignored by your client, who receives far fewer texts than emails per day.
Time Sensitive Updates
According to a survey, 90% of people read their text messages within three minutes of getting them. This makes texting an ideal way to let a customer know about time-sensitive information. Companies like Irio help with text marketing. For example, if your customer ordered something and its delivery is delayed, then you’ll want to let them know about any delays as soon as possible. With texting, you’re basically letting them know about these issues in real-time. This can earn you big points, particularly if the customer has other people who need to be notified immediately of any changes.
Create an Opt-In
Despite the ease of text marketing, you’ll still want to employ the same types of best practices activities that you would with other types of communication. According to Neil Patel, you still need to offer your potential customers an opt-in. To do otherwise goes against ethics. It’s also not legal to send unsolicited text marketing messages. Go with a two-step opt-in process just as you would any other type of marketing communication just to be safe.
Interactivity
Text messaging allows you to interact with your customers in real-time. This means that you can send interactive quizzes, time-sensitive coupons or rebates, and other offers that will engage your clients. This opens up so many possibilities and allows you to interact with your customers even when you’re not selling something.
While your email marketing efforts might get ignored due to the competition your email faces, it’s less likely that your text message will get ignored. Most people answer their texts right away, making this type of marketing ideal for engagement. While you’ll still have to be mindful of legalities and ethics, the advantages of SMS marketing still outweigh many other types of marketing hands down.