Text Message Marketing For Small Business: Launching Your Campaign in 7 Easy Steps
Messages are now a part of daily life. We communicate with friends, family, and businesses throughout our day using text messages and we also receive SMS marketing messages from brands that we love and patronize. But, what is SMS marketing and why is text message marketing for small businesses so important? In this article, we’ll touch on this and more.
Why Use SMS for Small Business Marketing?
SMS is a great tool for small business marketing because it is fast, efficient, cost-effective, and highly targeted. The ability to quickly create and send a text message to a large group of people makes it an ideal marketing tool. It also allows businesses to track the success of their campaigns in real time and make any necessary adjustments quickly.
Additionally, SMS marketing allows businesses to customize their messages to specific audiences, making sure that the right message reaches the right people. The most obvious benefit of using SMS marketing is that you can communicate with your customers in the channel they prefer most and get feedback through 2-way SMS marketing. When you combine SMS marketing with other marketing channels, you can boost your average user lifetime by more than 76%.
How Can You Use Text Message Marketing to Grow a Small Business?
Getting started with SMS marketing is quite simple provided that you keep these key things in mind: your brand, your message, your audience, and a mass SMS sending platform to create, send and monitor your campaigns. Here are a couple of ways you can grow your business using SMS messaging:
- Send out promotional offers: Use text message marketing to send out special offers and discounts to your customers. This can help you increase sales and grow your customer base.
- Generate leads: Text message marketing can help generate leads. You can send out messages to potential customers, inviting them to sign up for your newsletter or join your loyalty program.
- Send reminders: Use text message marketing to send out reminders to customers about upcoming promotions or events. This can help you to increase attendance and engagement.
- Connect with customers: Use text message marketing to connect with your customers and build relationships. You can send out messages asking for feedback, or just to check in and see how they’re doing.
- Personalize messages: Personalize your messages to ensure they are more engaging. You can include their name and include information that is relevant to them.
- Analyze data: Track and analyze data from your text message campaigns to gain insights into customer behavior. This can help you to refine your strategy and optimize your campaigns.
SMS Marketing Examples for Small Businesses
Sales promotions
One of the most popular uses for SMS marketing is sending promotions to your customers. It is a great channel for time-sensitive messages because 90% of people read their texts within three minutes.
In 2022, Amazon used SMS marketing to announce a 32% discount on items bought on Prime Day. This is a huge brand and they understand the power of SMS and how effective it can be when used properly.
Event invites
Want to get people to come to your store opening or attend a virtual product launch? Text messaging is an effective channel for inviting customers to your in-store and virtual events. Due to the conversational nature of SMS, your event invites would feel more personal and less like a mass texting campaign.
Brand building
Text message marketing does not always have to be about making a sale. As a small business owner, you can also use SMS to entertain or engage your customers directly and improve their experience with your brand.
For example, iFitness offers an innovative use of SMS marketing by allowing subscribers to get weekly diet suggestions throughout their fitness journey thus creating a well-rounded brand experience.
7 Easy-to-Follow Steps for Small Businesses to Start with SMS Marketing
Text Message Marketing: Define your goals
Before you begin, define your marketing objective. That way it is easier to measure success and it helps you plan. The more quantifiable your goal, the better.
Choose a service provider
Now, you have to choose a text message marketing service that offers the features you need and is within your budget. For example, BSG offers two-way texting and a number verifier to confirm if your subscribers are still active.
Set your campaign budget
You have to set a budget based on what you can afford, which is why you have to deliberate about what service provider you choose. Having an idea that is financially out of reach can be crushing and setting a budget can help you be realistic.
Identify your target audience
Figure out whom you’re targeting and understand their needs because this will help you create a relevant and memorable marketing campaign. Characteristics to consider range from age, gender, where they are located, and even their interests.
Build your contacts list
By adding an opt-in form on your website or using discounts and contests to get new customers, you can build your subscriber list with people that have given you consent to send them messages. You can assure them that they can always reach you through SMS too.
Create your content
The content of your message is very important. You have to be straight to the point as SMS allows for just 160 characters and your CTA must be very obvious to your customers. Do you want them to take advantage of a discount or clear their cart? You have to be very specific.
Schedule or send your first text
Finally, you’ve checked all the boxes and it’s the last one. You can choose to either schedule your campaign or send it immediately.
Your audience research will heavily influence your send time so you can always create a campaign beforehand and schedule to send anytime you want. With every service provider, you must familiarize yourself with their process by trying out a test campaign to see how it works.
Text Message Marketing: Wrapping up
One extra step would be to measure and analyze the results of your campaign and with BSG, you have a platform that gives you detailed statistics about your campaigns and visual insights about their performance.
Send your first text message marketing campaign today with BSG.
