Text-based marketing creates a certain urgency and intimacy that’s missing from other forms of marketing. Provided that personal devices are most-used amongst most audience types, text-based marketing becomes relevant to all industries. However, there’s also a certain element of annoyance associated with receiving text messages, which is why many brands steer clear of the marketing strategy. Yet, there are brands making a huge impact on their target audience through text-based marketing. Need a low-competition channel on which to promote conversion-oriented blog posts? Why not message them to customers?
There still exist powerful reasons for marketers such as yourselves to consider using text-based marketing. Here are 7 such reasons.
1. Standard messaging is the most-used feature on mobile phones
According to a study conducted by Express UK, 88% of 2000 respondents said they used the phone’s pre-installed text message feature daily. Interestingly, calling and watching videos on YouTube placed low on the list. This could mean that you’re more likely to reach your audience through standard text messages than through YouTube videos.
2. People check phone screens more often than they do anything else
How often do you check your mobile device’s screen? Exactly. According to KPMG’s 2017 survey, nearly 33% people look at their mobile screens every five minutes autonomously, even when not promoted by notifications. Say you send a message. That’s probably the smartest way to reach your audience instantly.
3. Consumers prefer text-based marketing over calls and emails
85% of the people who participated in this study said they preferred receiving messages from brands over receiving calls or emails from them. So if you were worried about annoying your customers, rest assured that isn’t the case. However, the frequency of your messages, timing of delivery and content can play a role in the impact of your text-based messaging on customers.
4. The open-rate of text messages is very high
According to a study conducted by Moghul, 90% of all text messages are read within 3 minutes of delivery. That’s an incredibly high conversion rate. With the right content and text-based marketing strategy, you can not only reach a large part of your audience but also have a solid impact on them.
5. Text-based marketing can be powerfully interactive
Most marketers fail at less-used marketing forms because they limit their strategy to what’s talked about on the internet. Why not send text messages that require a response from your audience? According to CTIA, the average person takes 90 seconds to respond to a message as compared to 90 minutes to respond to emails.
6. Customers are enthusiastic about subscribing to brands’ message alerts
In a survey, 50% participants confirmed that they had subscribed to a brand’s messaging alerts to be kept in the loop. Post-GDPR, it’s essential for marketers to obtain the consent of their audience before sending them content. This statistic proves that there’s potential for businesses such as yours to have customers subscribed to your messaging service.
7. Text-based marketing has high conversion rates
According to Velocity, text-based marketing can have conversions of over 100%. But when a brand sends text messages before initiating personal contact, it can have adverse effects. That’s why it’s essential to create a proper content marketing strategy before initiating any contact with customers through text messages.
Tips to make text-based marketing super-effective
If text-based marketing has not worked for your business, it’s because of how it’s being executed. Random, frequent and low-value text messages can harm your cause more than further it. That’s why it’s essential to follow certain norms when using text-based marketing for your business.
Here are 10 tips for you to leverage the power of text-based marketing.
1. Get consent. For any mobile marketer, consent is critical. Sending unsolicited messages to customers will cause your brand irreparable harm. This is actually good news. Consent-collection is another opportunity for you to interact with your audience. Use it well, as Dumbledore would say.
For example, if you have a brick and mortar retail store, you could put an inspiring quote on the wall and ask your audience to leave their numbers behind to get one such quote every day.
2. Get creative. Unless you’re sending discounts and offers, you can send pretty much anything. There are several experiments that you can run with text messages such as sending blog posts or videos that your customers may find interesting. The advantage of doing this is that most of your competitors wouldn’t be.
Say, for instance, you run a construction company. You could send the link to a video talking about types of cement and their advantages/disadvantages, leading viewers to your website created by a construction web design company. This is something none of your competitors would be doing and would give you the advantage of standing out of the crowd.
Note: Are you ordering guest posts, eBooks or whitepapers from Godot Media? Try setting up a messaging system to promote these resources and see the impact of the strategy. If you’re not ordering articles yet, order a batch today and try promoting the resources we create for you through text-based marketing.
3. Keep it simple. Even on text messages, it’s best to keep it short and simple. Avoid long, dwindling text messages. Avoid complex language. Simply state what you have to offer and it’ll be super-effective. If you’re promoting a blog post, try using a link shortener such as Bit.ly to make the result trackable and the text visibly more appealing.
4. Consider mobile-friendliness of links and text. If you’re sending links, do a test-run to check if the click works and opens into a mobile-optimized window. Also, type in your text on your mobile device’s message editor to see what the text will look like on your audience members’ devices. You could even send a test message to see what shows up in the notification and optimize that content.
The first three words should be enough to create an impact, or your message may not get opened.
5. Enable opting-out on every message. By enabling opt-outs, you prove to your audience that you care about their experience with your brand. You give them more control and reduce the chances of them getting annoyed with your content. Enabling opt-outs also ensures that you’re in-line with GDPR and other customer-privacy protection agencies.
Again, opt-outs are an opportunity to show your brand’s personality. Say something sticky so your audience remembers you for it.
6. Create urgency. Text-based marketing inherently creates urgency, but you can amplify that using smart copy. With offers, creating urgency is easy. Just say the offer is available for a limited period. But everyone does this. How would one use this opportunity for branding? You could create a dedicated day of the week for an offer presented in a creative manner.
For instance, if you’re in retail, do Frugal Fridays and sell one, collectible, limited-edition item at a flat price of $50 with a countdown of 20 hrs, when all of your other items are over $100. This is great bait for shoppers.
7. Personalize messages. Use your customers’ first names on every message. This is more effective than sending nameless, mass-messages. There are software that can do this for you. You could even have personalized offers for different groups of your target audiences. For instance, if you’re tracking shopping trends and abandoned carts on your website, you could message a personalized offer on an abandoned item. This is likely to result in high-conversions and an actual increase in revenue.
8. Time it right. Messages may be effective, but when the timing’s just right. Since we’ve established that customers spend a lot of time checking their mobile devices’ screens, you have large windows of time to experiment with. But even so, your timing matters. For instance, for retail, the beginning of the month is most effective, just after your customers’ salaries get credited.
Also, for Christmas, you may want to do one campaign early on for customers who plan in advance and one campaign just before Christmas Eve to target last-minute buyers. Timing matters. Think about what’s the best time for your products.
9. Control your frequency. The last thing you want is to tick-off customers by sending messages all too frequently. Check with them if that’s what it takes. In the same form which you use to collect customer contact numbers, ask how frequently a customer would like to receive messages and take their response seriously.
If you have an effective text-based messaging plan, even one message a week or month can make a huge difference to your marketing. Plan your frequency carefully. Never send a message with no value.
10. Offer relief. In a stressful world, everyone’s looking for relief. How can you make your customers’ lives easier? Make their shopping experience effortless and enjoyable. Give them the information they would appreciate. Remind them of when to pay tax returns or give tips to resolve their biggest hangups. Use text messages to do this instead of promoting your own brand, and you’ll see how customers thank you for it.
For instance, if you are a financial consultant, send a message with a blog post link to different free apps that can ease the process of filing tax returns. It’s this type of experience that really endears customers to a brand.
Wrap
Text-based marketing, when properly planned, can enhance your marketing the way you’ve been dreaming of. A relatively-untapped channel, text messaging can give you the advantage you need over your competition. Get started today by ordering a batch of high-conversion blog posts written by our most talented writers.