The 7 rules of successful SMS Marketing campaigns

How to create and implement a successful SMS marketing campaign

There are countless reasons why your business should consider implementing SMS marketing as part of your overall communications strategy.

1. It’s budget-friendly - you can send messages from around 2p / 2 cents per message
2. It hits the mark - over 97% of text messages are read within the first four minutes
3. It gets your customers to act - 19% of people will click a link in a SMS campaign rather than just 4.2% for emails
4. It produces results - 30% of SMS campaigns receive average response rates of 30%, compared to 4% for emails

But there are rules to follow in order for each of your SMS campaigns to be successful. In this post I will inform you of the rules we encourage customers to adopt as often as possible when building your SMS marketing campaign. In addition, I’ll also showcase a ‘How To’, bringing these rules into a real life campaign example that you’ll be able to adopt in your own SMS practice.

Rule 1 - Communicate valuable offerings

Remember that your consumers seek valuable offers. Always make sure that the SMS you send out creates a hard to resist offer. Put yourself in the shoes of your customers or prospective customers and ask yourself, will this interest them? Will this encourage them to checkout, visit your store, call or email you?

No audience wants to receive a worthless, pointless offer from a brand that they love, and remember, you want your customers to love you.

Example:

Buy 2 jeans, get 1 shirt for FREE for all Gold text Club members this whole week at the Levi’s Frankwood Shopping Mall outlet. Show this text to redeem this deal. Customer service representatives are waiting for you at the store! Levi Strauss & Co.

Rule 2 - Start the text with your offer

Text message marketing is built to be concise and to the point. Your audience are busy people, and not getting to the point straight away will turn them off. Just cut right to the chase in order to reach everyone. Placing your offer at the beginning of the message grabs maximum attention.

Example:

Buy 2 jeans, get 1 shirt for FREE for all Gold text Club members this whole week at the Levi’s Frankwood Shopping Mall outlet. Show this text to redeem this deal. Customer service representatives are waiting for you at the store! Levi Strauss & Co.

Rule 3 - Keep it exclusive

In order to make the most out of your SMS campaign, make sure you that what your offers seems to be exclusive to the person reading and receiving it. Make your audience feel as though they are part of something special. If an offer is available to everyone, then redeeming that offer becomes less attractive and urgent. Making a sale via SMS is all about ensuring your feel special and valued.

Example:

Buy 2 jeans, get 1 shirt for FREE for all Gold text Club members this whole week at the Levi’s Frankwood Shopping Mall outlet. Show this text to redeem this deal. Customer service representatives are waiting for you at the store! Levi Strauss & Co.

Rule 4 - Create a sense of urgency

Your business can see rising footfall, website visits and revenue if you create a sense of urgency amongst your audience. Your audience will take time out of their day if you create enough of a reason for them to. An offer is a viable offer only if there is an expiry date associated with the offer and that this is clearly communicated in the offer itself.

Example:

Buy 2 jeans, get 1 shirt for FREE for all Gold text Club members this whole week at the Levi’s Frankwood Shopping Mall outlet. Show this text to redeem this deal. Customer service representatives are waiting for you at the store! Levi Strauss & Co.

Rule 5 - Location, location, location

Mentioning the location is the single most important element of your text message that your audience will need to know in order to redeem the offer. Do not miss out on stating the exact location of your store, even if it is an eCommerce store. Your audience would lose respect and willingness to engage with you as a brand if you grabbed their attention with an offer, without telling them where to go to get it.

Example:

Buy 2 jeans, get 1 shirt for FREE for all Gold text Club members this whole week at the Levi’s Frankwood Shopping Mall outlet. Show this text to redeem this deal. Customer service representatives are waiting for you at the store! Levi Strauss & Co.

Rule 6 - Include a call to action

A call to action is vital in order to lead the customer into your sales funnel. Keep your call to action clean and simple and easy to follow. Assume that your audience are lazy, but a clever call to action will spring them into action.

Example:

Buy 2 jeans, get 1 shirt for FREE for all Gold text Club members this whole week at the Levi’s Frankwood Shopping Mall outlet. Show this text to redeem this deal. Customer service representatives are waiting for you at the store! Levi Strauss & Co.

Rule 7 - State your brand name explicitly

There are different ways to ensure that your audience know where the text is coming from. The sender ID can be used for this purpose, but what your audience is reading when they receive the text is the text itself, so it’s worth signing off with who you are in the body of the text as well.

Example:

Buy 2 jeans, get 1 shirt for FREE for all Gold text Club members this whole week at the Levi’s Frankwood Shopping Mall outlet. Show this text to redeem this deal. Customer service representatives are waiting for you at the store! Levi Strauss & Co.

Thanks to Gareth Davies for sharing advice and opinions in this post. Gareth Davies is the Managing Director of Voodoo SMS, a Bulk SMS messaging platform. Their motive is to provide simple solutions for text message marketing, packed with the latest market-leading features yet suitable for any business of any size and any budget. You can connect with Gareth on LinkedIn.