An 8 Step Guide On How To Run A Successful SMS Marketing Campaign

Do you often wonder whether your SMS marketing strategy is producing results the way you would like it to?

With around 22 billion texts sent worldwide every day, don’t you feel there’s a lot of competition to gain the attention of your targeted audience?

The number of SMS sent each day just keeps growing making it all the more essential to do the SMS marketing the right way. By the end of this guide you’ll definitely get a few tricks up your sleeve to run a successful SMS marketing campaign that can garner more attention, engagement, leads converting into more sales.

Let’s take it from the top, shall we,

What Is An SMS Marketing Campaign?

An SMS marketing campaign is an SMS sent from a business to one or more customers or prospects. A successful SMS marketing campaign will get the recipients to engage with your business, take action, and help you to get more leads and sales.

People are on their phones at all hours of the day and night.

• Adults in the age bracket of 18-24 send and receive over 128 texts every day.
• Adults 25-34 send and receive over 75 texts a day.
• Adults 35-44 send and receive about 52 texts a day.
• Adults 45-54 send and receive 33 texts a day.
• Adults 55+ send and receive 16 texts a day.

There’s a whole lot of texting happening making SMS marketing the perfect tool for building customer relationships to help you generate leads and sales.

Steps To Follow For A Successful SMS Marketing Campaign

To run a successful SMS marketing campaign you need to do some groundwork so you’re prepped for success the minute you go for it.

1. Know Thy Goals

A good marketing strategy begins with setting goals, and SMS marketing is no different. Before you begin, think about what you wish to achieve with the current marketing campaign. Your goals can include

• Welcoming new users
• Nurturing existing customer relationships
• Boosting engagement
• Re-engaging old users
• Segmenting users
• Conversion goals

2. Know Thy SMS

It’s good to know your craft well, in this case, the SMS. There are two key SMS types, but here we are talking about the third one too.

• Promotional SMS – Talks about sales, marketing, offers, basically are self-promotional.
• Transactional SMS – Informs about order updates, information, alerts, basically are informational.
• OTP SMS – Used for authentication or verifying user, basically provides an extra layer of security.

3. Know Thy Audience

If you’ve been into SMS marketing for some time now, you’d probably know who your audiences are, but if you are just starting out you’ll have to start with trial and error. But don’t worry, you’ll start collecting user info the minute you start and the next time you’ll have real data to work with.

4. Know Thy Technology

Best SMS marketing services have tools that help you create successful SMS marketing campaigns. The tools include

• Easy campaign creations and automation flows
• Allows integration with software already in use
• Ways to segment audience
• In-depth analytics

5. Know Thy Opt-Ins

To run a successful SMS campaign, you need people to opt-in on your SMS list and for that, you need to give them options to opt-in through contact forms, pop-up boxes, welcome gates, social media platforms, ads and other possible options.

6. Know Thy Follow-ups

Once you know your goals, SMS types, technology and audience that you’ve attracted through opt-ins, it’s time to plan your SMS marketing campaign. A good approach is to note:

• Type of SMS
• Content
• Call to action
• SMS frequency

7. Know Thy Copy

It’s time to write your SMS copy.

For best results,

• Keep it to the point (as if you have an option, remember 160 characters only)
• Address users by their name (personalized SMS are more successful)
• Add contextual content (something that is of value to your audience)
• Add short URL (allowing users to open a web page/video/ poll directly)

Of course, you don’t have to add everything in one SMS. An ideal SMS will be short with a clear call to action and an expiry (if there is) creating a sense of urgency.

8. Know Thy Results

Sending your SMS is just the first step in achieving success, nailing it requires good data for future campaigns. It means testing your SMS – sender ID, marketing copy, call to action, different audience, send time, open rates, click rates, opt-in, opt-out and wherever else it is possible to help you figure out what is working best for your SMS marketing.

Now you know how to run a successful email marketing campaign, but before you actually begin, ensure your users opt-in to your campaign. Know more about user consent and why it is important before sending an SMS.

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