Leveraging the power of marketing is one of the most effective approaches to leveling up your business. It involves sending promotional messages or adverts to target audiences to increase awareness of your products or services. Without it, you’ll barely connect with customers, so your business won’t take off the ground.  

You can consider various advertising strategies to connect with clients. And one of them is short message service (SMS) marketing. Currently, there are more than 6.6 billion users of smartphones globally. For that reason, more businesses are using text messages to connect with this large audience. You should also follow suit to gain more leads and sales.  

Apart from the greater audience reach, SMS marketing lets you engage with clients based on their preferences, like what type of messages they want to receive. As such, you can customize your pitches to enhance customer experience.  

Besides, SMS marketing is less expensive compared to other forms of promotion. And because texts are more customizable, they give high returns on investment. Therefore, you need to consider establishing an SMS marketing strategy.  

Like any other marketing strategy, SMS advertising has its own rules. Here are some do’s and don’ts when implementing SMS marketing for your business.  

Do’s Of SMS Marketing

1. Include A Clear Call To Action

Creating an SMS marketing plan might take much of your time and effort. However, all your efforts may go down the drain if you don’t get positive results. Therefore, you need to find effective ways to enhance the efficiency of your campaigns. And one of the best ways to achieve that is by including a clear call to action.  

A call to action is a prompt (in the form of a link or phrase in your messages) that directs or tells users to take the next move. For instance, it can direct the reader to visit your online store, subscribe to your weekly newsletter, share something with others, or call you back. Whatever you want to achieve with your SMS marketing, be sure to include a clear call to action.  

2. Write Brief Texts

As noted earlier, SMS marketing is all about using short messages to connect with customers. Therefore, you must be brief but provide useful information. Besides, your texts should be able to grab the audience’s attention. The most recommended length of SMS for promotions is 160 characters. Therefore, ensure you write something within that limit.  

3. Have An Attention Grabber At The Beginning Of Your Text

As noted in the previous section, you’ll use a maximum of 160 characters to deliver your message. Therefore, you must maximize every character to ensure you attain your objectives. For that reason, you must find effective ways to ensure your target audiences engage with your texts. That’s where an attention grabber comes in. 

Attention grabber helps attract the attention of the user. As such, they can read and engage with your texts. That goes a long way in enhancing customer responses and conversions. An example of an attention grabber is something like ‘GREAT DISCOUNT’ or ‘SPECIAL SALE.’ 

4. Time Your Messaging Well

You must time your message if you want to enhance customer responses. Without proper timing, all your efforts won’t bear any fruit. Therefore, study your target audiences to determine the best time of the day they’re likely to open and engage with your texts. 

The best time to deliver your messages could be early morning, lunchtime, evening, or any other time you think your customers are free. The idea here is to avoid disturbing your prospects when they’re busy, as that can irritate them to the extent of blocking your line.  

But still, you can send messages to customers at any time of the day. However, it’d be a good idea to leverage the power of ringless voicemail technology. It allows you to send messages to clients without involving the phone ringing. As such, users will open your messages at the most convenient time for them to do so. That helps with customer responses and sales. 

Don’ts Of SMS Marketing

• Send Messages During Quiet Hours 

After long work hours, your customers will want to sleep and rest. You should avoid sending customers messages during that time since you’ll disturb them. 

In connection with that, the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 requires businesses not to disturb customers during quiet hours, which is between 9 PM and 8 AM the following day. So, it’s just good to comply with the law. 

If you serve customers across the globe, you must study their specific time zones. That ensures you send messages only during the accepted times.  

• Forget To Introduce Yourself 

There are several other brands with similar offerings to yours. So how can customers know who is texting them? To avoid that confusion, you must identify yourself to help prospects recognize your brand. 

Once you introduce yourself, your message becomes relevant to your audience. As such, they’ll likely engage with it. Plus, it’s always good to identify yourself when you meet a person for the first time. It shows you value them.  

• Become Too Promotional

You’re investing in SMS marketing to sell more products or services. However, becoming too promotional in your texts will do more harm to your business than good. Why? Because most customers don’t like such kinds of texts, so they’ll likely ignore them.  

One of the best ways to succeed in SMS marketing is to avoid being too promotional. In other words, your texts shouldn’t all be about selling. Instead, some of your texts should contain useful information to consumers or what they want to hear.  

Takeaway

SMS marketing provides a cost-effective way to reach an enormous audience. It allows you to create texts and send them in bulk. As such, more people will come to learn about your offerings. 

Additionally, SMS marketing requires little or no initial capital investment. That’s true since you can use your phone to deliver messages to clients about your enterprise.  

To succeed in SMS marketing, you need to implement all the best practices. You can achieve that by following the tips explained above.