Until recent years, advertising required a lot of careful planning and extensive waiting time between launch and any kind of perceivable response
Today mobile marketing channels allow brands to interact with customers in real time. Through SMS marketing, brands can simultaneously send time-sensitive information to hundreds and even thousands of customers and they will be sure to see it, probably within a few minutes. Today, brands can also see a return on their investment almost immediately after launching a mobile ad of some kind.
Despite all of the excitement surrounding mobile marketing—and SMS marketing in particular—the results aren’t always as good as they could be. So here are five keys to success with SMS marketing that you should keep in mind.
Audience data
It really is impossible to know enough about your audience. You want to gather as much data about your audience as possible.
The more you know your audience, the more you’ll be able to tailor your mobile marketing strategy to their needs. Know what kinds of things will interest them, know what questions and apprehensions they’ll have. Find out everything you can and take it all into consideration.
Audience segmenting
Unless you have a super specific audience, chances are, you will have more than one target audience. Rather than waste money sending the same advertisement to all of your various audiences, you can find ways to segment your audience and tailor different ads for different audiences.
Well-crafted messages
Where most SMS marketing campaigns fall flat is the quality of the message itself. In one way, traditional marketing had the advantage of being more expensive and difficult because it forced marketers to craft their message very carefully. Because SMS is so immediate and simple, many brands don’t take the necessary effort to really craft their messages. Don’t use texting jargon, try to get your message across as concisely as possible. Be very clear and make sure you do a final proofread to catch any grammatical or spelling errors before sending it off to your customers.
Sender ID
Pretty much all SMS marketing service providers and software will allow you to set your own sender ID. This is a simple thing but is often overlooked. Many business owners simply assume that their customers will know who it is that’s texting them. Don’t leave it to chance and set your sender ID to your brand’s name.
Schedule send
Finally, it’s important to take into consideration the timing of your message. The day of the week or the time of day can make all the different between an effective and an ineffective advertisement. Every SMS marketing provider should allow you to schedule the timing of your text messages.
