How to Increase Interest in Leads Using Text Messaging Marketing
Text message marketing, also known as SMS marketing, is a method that is spreading like wildfire to gain more interest in small and large businesses across the county. By using personalized text alerts, businesses can capture the attention of a wider audience while significantly reducing costs. This is because while print alerts will cost a business per print, text alerts are priced per short line and per software. The public has also become desensitized to print marketing, while texts still have a very personal control over people.
The first step in building interest in your business and gaining more repeat customers through SMS marketing is understanding the difference between spam and really wanted texts. By allowing your customers to opt in to your text messages, you make sure they love you. People who receive spam from companies rarely (if ever) want to do business with that company. By sending occasional text messages to potentially interested customers, you are showing them that you respect both their privacy and their data plans.
Getting cell phone numbers for a subscription line is pretty easy, if done correctly. Offering an incentive for customers to sign up for text messages, such as a reward, is a great way to get new customers interested in what your text messages are saying. Events and event-related businesses will benefit from attending similar events with a company booth. Asking customers at your booth to opt-in to receive alerts about your event (or sales) will likely lead to high sign-up returns, simply because they have already shown interest in companies or events similar to yours. Using your website as a way to advertise your text marketing will also get you great results, especially when combined with exclusive discounts and secret sales. The bottom line of getting customers to sign up for your SMS marketing is offering something special through your text messages, be it important information, secret sales, and discount codes, or even something as simple as the chance to win a prize. Offer yourself and they will come.
Next, remember that frequency counts. The business that uses your text messages to offer “daily deals” will soon find that fewer and fewer customers will read your text messages. SMS marketing is based on the ability to get people to read texts. At the most, try sending a text message once a week offering a discount, an upgrade, or something more vital to your business. It’s best to listen to people’s feedback on how often your business is marketing SMS. If you start a new texting schedule and find that people are being excluded from your service, cut back on texting a bit. Also, if customers complain about the high frequency of text messages they receive, you know it’s time to cut back on the number of messages you send.
When writing the right kind of SMS messages, remember that keeping sales people is very important. If possible, try to get software that allows you to add your customer’s name when shooting a text message. It’s more personal and will seem more “human” than getting a text message about the latest sale. Ensuring that the text messages you send also match what your customers are looking for will also make a big difference in whether or not your business will use text message marketing to its full potential. For example, if you are a business serving young mothers with expendable income, it makes sense to get a 20% discount on the most stylish baby carrier. On the other hand, if you are a business that focuses on young mothers, it will not make sense to send a mass text message about the big sale you have on diet pills.
Keeping text messages lively, direct, and easy to understand will keep customers reading. The ideal text message marketing campaign is peppered with discounts, short, and definitely simple. Small businesses looking for more customers through word of mouth should also suggest (occasionally) forwarding their most intriguing text messages to their friends. This works especially well with restaurants, bars, and event marketing. The more people know about what your business is doing, the more people will want to check it out, after all. More traditional businesses, such as banks, clothing stores, and supply stores, would be smart to offer group discounts via SMS marketing for people who share their discount codes via text message with friends. The benefit of this is twofold. First of all, people are more likely to spread the word about your SMS marketing service and make people choose to receive more text messages. Then people will also be more likely to buy in large groups, which turns into benefits for your company.
Lastly, remember that text message marketing works best with other forms of marketing, too. Using print, television, radio, and word of mouth are great ways to attract new customers to your business. While text message marketing is an amazing way to generate interest in your business, your products, and your ideas, the only way to get the word out with text message marketing is to get people to sign up. The only way to get more people to sign up is by telling them about your service, listening to their feedback, and offering them decent incentives.
Text message marketing is now one of the best ways to get customers, retain them, and learn from them. There is no doubt that SMS marketing offers a wide variety of benefits to small businesses looking to increase their customer base. By harnessing this power properly, you can sit back and watch your small business flourish and expand into the great business you know it should be.