Keep up with the times, people. Customers want to text.
People love their social media, they love their fast internet, and they love texting. Phones are now an extension of ourselves. Marketing emails are dismissed, and phone calls are flat-out shunned, so why do so few businesses offer their services via text, which is a preferred method of communication?
Business marketing texting is when organizations send marketing texts to their customers. Also known as SMS marketing or text marketing, it’s a powerful way to connect to your customers, as marketing phone calls and emails are no longer the only way to reach people.
As SMS marketing is a fast-growing field, many businesses want to know the ever-important questions: What is the return on investment?
A return on investment (ROI) is easy to calculate. It’s how you measure the approximate profitability of an investment to see how much you may have gained or lost. To calculate your ROI, you first subtract the total revenue from the total cost.
That’s your net return. Then divide the net return by the total cost again, then multiply that number by 100. This will give you your ROI in a percentage format.
Remember, this is just an approximation. Many other factors will come into play here, so you should consider everything carefully to understand your ROI.
To help you out, we’ve compiled some of the best ways to maximize your ROI on business text marketing.
Only Send With Consent
This is the first and foremost rule of marketing with SMS. Since SMS marketing is delivered directly to people’s phones, you must ensure that you have followed the proper channels and have gotten consent.
Many businesses dealing with SMS marketing even like to get double consent before sending anything. Failure to follow these rules will result in difficult and complicated lawsuits.
Similarly, ensure you have a clear opt-out option, as this is often legally required. Spamming customers with marketing texts is a great way to guarantee that they never buy anything from your business again.
Personalize Your Message Structure
We don’t want to feel like we’re part of a massive marketing scheme. Using your customers’ first names to greet them in a text can do wonders for emotional branding. Furthermore, if you know what they’ve shopped for or taken an interest in, you can also include that in your message.
You need to collect data to get a general idea of your customers. Things like a customer’s birthday, age, gender, location, and name can be used to curate a marketing text specifically for them. It makes the message less transactional, and in turn, your customer can feel that their business with you is valued.
Know Your Audience
You need to know who your loyal customers are, your new customers, customers who engage, and customers who don’t. That way, you can tailor the message to suit each target audience. For example, you wouldn’t be saying “Welcome back” to a brand-new customer. With each group, monitor the responses and react accordingly.
Measure Your Metrics
In order to accurately determine if this marketing strategy is working for you, you must ensure that your metrics are all accounted for.
For example, you should always track which of your messages have been successfully delivered and which have failed to send or bounced back. This way, you have the statistics for your next round of marketing.
According to data from ReviewsVector, recipients have a higher engagement rate with content and are more likely to click links when they receive them via SMS, compared to email.
It’s important to monitor the number of people who opt out of SMS marketing messages, as this can provide valuable insights into your connection with your customers.
For example, are you sending messages too frequently? Or not frequently enough? Are the messages too lengthy? These questions should be regularly revisited, as the marketing landscape can change rapidly.
Automate, Automate, Automate
Automation is here to make our lives easier. Save time and, by extension, money by automating your marketing message campaign.
If you have an event coming up, you can set up your texts in advance, and it’ll run on autopilot when the time comes, leaving you plenty of time to focus on other things like monitoring feedback.
Take Risks
As the saying goes: You’ll never know if you don’t try. Experiment with your marketing messages and try different combinations.
Different times, message lengths, adding a link, or taking out a link, there are many different ways to spice up your messages so that your customers are consistently stimulated. Sometimes, it’ll work out, and other times, it won’t. Be patient and you’ll see results.
Similarly, the popular A/B testing method is a great way to test your results in SMS marketing. With this method, you split your audience into two groups, A or B. You can see which group responds better by sending a different message to either group A or B. Using this information, you can better inform your next steps.
Don’t Forget Your People
Your sales team may be the most important people you talk to. After all, they’re the ones on the front lines every day, connecting with your customers and seeing the trends.
While you may see the bigger picture, they know the details, so chat with them, and you may find yourself with new understandings that can further your marketing strategy for the future.
To Finish Up…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1XHzcnH6J4
Remember that ROI means different things to different businesses. Finding out what’s important to your business will affect how you value your customer relationship.
SMS text marketing is one of many ways to connect with your customers, and if used in conjunction with other platforms, it can effectively elevate your marketing strategy.
SMS marketing is easy to start with, but you need more than just your phone’s messaging app. SMS marketing software will make this process a breeze for you, and it will depend entirely on what you want to get out of it.
