Once you have started your SMS marketing campaign, you may think that you are ready to hit the ground running. However, you are still halfway there. The next step is crafting a text blast message to reach your customers and engage them well. The following are some of the best practices for creating the perfect text blast:
Offer incentives
The first challenge is building up an active and engaged following. One way to achieve this is to offer incentives for signing up and opting in to your SMS campaign. It can be as simple as a coupon or special offer. Once you have established a strong following and picked up steam, text blast will now come into play.
Keep it short and simple
The next step is to create a text blast to send out to your customers. One very important piece of advice is to make it easy and straightforward. The reason customers prefer text messaging is due to the simplicity of the channel. As marketers, you need to meet their expectations in this area, if not exceed them.
Provide a clear, valuable solution
Part of keeping it simple is to provide a clear, valuable solution. When you do include a call-to-action (CTA) in a text blast, which you always should, make it clear what you are asking for. One advantage of SMS marketing is that it’s limited to 160 characters only. This means text blasts should get to the point as fast as possible and offer a solution with an action that customers can take.
Create a sense of urgency
There are times, however, when being clear and concise do not necessarily ensure customer engagement. If this happens, you have the option to create a sense of urgency with your text blast. Phrases such as ‘limited offer’ or ‘before Dec 31st’ are examples of using the right language to get your point across. That point being: act now before it’s too late.
Automate support
The final best practice for crafting the perfect text blast is to automate support through SMS whenever possible. Most of the first steps in providing support to customers will be more or less the same. It is therefore important to set up each of the options with automatic responses. For instance, you may include a message that says ‘reply INFO’ to receive more on your services.
The key to SMS marketing and text blasts lies within being simple yet effective. If you can achieve this with your messages, you will no doubt find success in your SMS marketing endeavors.
W.B.