Here is a quick confession.

One time I bought SMS contact lists. Don’t DO It! You’d be surprised how easy it was to get more than 100k phone numbers for a tiny fee.

Welcome to the murky side of SMS marketing. Have you ever received an SMS message and wondered “where the h*** did this person get my phone number?”

Annoying, right?

That’s not SMS marketing. That’s called SPAMMING. And we can all agree it’s annoying to high heavens.

As a business looking to generate leads, you won’t get far with that kind of approach. That’s not how a successful SMS campaign works.

SMS marketing will spice up your digital marketing strategy and that’s for sure - but only if you do it right. To the uninitiated, SMS marketing simply means using text messages to market your products or services.

Why SMS Marketing Should be Part of Your Digital Marketing Strategy

SMS gets a bad rap.

Those who are unfamiliar tend to think text messages is either dead or illegal, especially with all the privacy laws.

The truth is:

Text messaging as a marketing tactic is alive and well. You have nothing to fear if you follow SMS compliance laws - one being that the recipient should agree to receive your marketing messages.

Many businesses succeed in driving sales with SMS marketing. How? These businesses leveraged the power of SMS to stay ahead of the competition. Successful entrepreneurs know that making their customers happy is key. One avenue to do this is by building stronger relationships via text.

We all spend lots of time on our phones. If want to increase sales with a engaged audience, why not market to a platform we all use daily?

SMS marketing is a form of direct communication with high open rates compared to other channels, including email, which is widely renowned as one of the best forms of digital marketing channels. SMS marketing rates exceed that of even email.

That’s right, other forms of marketing can’t compare to the open rates of SMS. If you’re not using SMS marketing, your business is missing out on a massive opportunity.

Besides open rates, SMS marketing excels for a variety of campaigns. One example is campaigns with a. time-sensitive offer. SMS marketing is the best way to reach these prospects. It’s the perfect medium for real-time updates.

Why else would you invest in SMS marketing?

Well, SMS is cost-effective. It’s way cheaper to send text messages compared to other forms of promotion, especially when the ROI is through the roof.

Plus, you don’t need technical know-how or a team of tech-savvy people to launch SMS marketing campaigns. If you can use Google, you can automate everything from a central dashboard, and there isn’t any coding involved.

In other words, SMS marketing is relatively cheap and easy to set up; you don’t need outside help - unless you’re extremely busy. In all honesty, you can launch your next SMS campaign in less than 10 minutes.

SMS marketing comes with a ton of benefits for your digital marketing strategy. Perhaps the biggest is that it’s the most effective way to reach your most loyal customers.

Here’s how to kill it with SMS marketing in a world full of competition.

How to Use Business Text Messaging

To start, don’t buy SMS contact lists.

In no time (thanks to advances in mobile phone tech), you will land in the SPAM box where your messages have zero impact.

For starters, you should build a list. Don’t send out SMS blasts to the entire universe. That’s what spammers do. Instead, build a list of contacts organically.

Here’s how to get the most out of SMS marketing, even if you’re the perfect beginner.

Send short but engaging messages - Nowadays, people have short attention spans. Very few (if any) people are willing to read a long and boring text. Send short and engaging messages. Leave longer messages for channels such as email and sales pages. Keep your text messages less than 160 characters.

Allow customers to reply - Once, a business sent me a really exciting offer. I wanted to ask about something that wasn’t clear from the SMS. Guess what - you couldn’t reply to the message! How disappointing? Make sure buyers can reply to your text messages. Your business text messaging software should support two-way communication.

Choose the right software - That leads me to the next point. If you want to succeed, begin your SMS marketing journey with the right business text messaging software. Keep in mind features such as real-time chat, ticketing system, detailed analytics, and integrations, among others.

Time your messages appropriately - In every area of life, timing is everything. As an astute businessperson, you probably know this already. Your SMS campaigns mean nothing if the timing is off. To achieve the best results, you need to strike when the iron is still hot. Time your SMS campaigns carefully.

Trigger live agent notifications - If customers reply to your promotional messages, doesn’t it make sense to have somebody on standby to receive the requests? Ensure you have someone ready to reply.

Target the right campaigns with SMS marketing - Don’t send text messages because other businesses are doing it. And don’t send messages just to exhaust your SMS quota. Use SMS wisely. It’s quite a powerful tool. For instance, you can use SMS marketing to send out discounts, birthday wishes, holiday offers, competitions, appointment reminders, and so on. You get it.

Be creative - Use your business text messaging software to send images, GIFs, or video clips. As we said earlier, create and send short and engaging messages.

Include a call to action - Every SMS marketing campaign you send should have a goal. What would you like the recipient to do after reading your text? Don’t leave them hanging - wondering what they should do next. Direct them to take specific action as per your business goals.