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Why SMS Marketing isn’t Dead – and How to Generate More Revenue through Intelligent Growth

Why SMS Marketing isn’t Dead – and How to Generate More Revenue through Intelligent Growth – 2m-pmc : Management Consultants

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Why SMS Marketing isn’t Dead – and How to Generate More Revenue through Intelligent Growth

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Optimism Bias and Strategic Misrepresentation -

by Michael Mallaby

August 18, 2020

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Let’s start with killing the myths that SMS messaging is finished…

SMS is the most widely used data application in the entire world

Approximately 3.7 billion users around the world send and receive SMS

Response rates via SMS are 8 times that of email

Texting is more popular than voice calling, especially among youths aged 16 to 24

96% of UK smartphone owners use SMS

Texting is now the second most common use for a mobile phone. The first is for checking the time and the internet usage is quickly growing

Sending patients text reminders about doctors’ and dentists’ appointments could save the NHS up to £150 million a year.

Text messages are usually read within 15 minutes of being received and responded to within one hour

Texting is more popular than voice calling, especially among youths aged 16 to 24

Some pretty impressive numbers ....

80% of the Millennial generation say their phone is the first thing they check when they wake up.

The point here is that people keep their phones handy and are always ready to use them to find information or check the latest social media updates.

Open rates for texts vastly surpass email (which dwindles at 24%).

It’s clear that we’ve become dependent on our phones, which then opens the door for testing new mediums to reach consumers. Mobile advertising works, but only if your message makes it to the consumer’s inbox, and only if your ad is mobile-optimised.

SMS Messaging is the only way to steer clear of the noise and get a positive Return on Investment.

Most online marketers laugh at the idea of SMS marketing because they think it’s more regulated than email marketing. But that’s a misplaced assumption. If you don't have a system that is focused on mobile-targeting tactics, then this is costing you conversions, clients, and revenue.

Meanwhile, SMS marketing is almost happening underground - ready in the background, waiting for you to capitalise on it.

Here’s how and why you should revisit SMS marketing to generate revenue.

The many advantages of SMS Messaging

If you think Facebook and Instagram has good engagement numbers?

Wait until you see what SMS text messages get.

Benefit No 1

Texting has by far the best engagement rates of any marketing medium.

Emails may be left unread for days. Phone calls can go unanswered, but text messages are almost always read immediately after they’re sent.

We have already shown the dismal open rates for email. The average CTR for PPC ads is even worse at 2%. The fact is that SMS Marketing is under-rated, under-appreciated and in many cases under-used....

The likelihood of getting your message to the intended target is substantially higher than with email, PPC, organic, or social media.

But nothing great comes without its catch. It’s neither ethical nor legal to send unsolicited messages with text-message marketing, so you need to have a simple opt-in system. That’s where the power of the opt-in offer and discount coupon comes in…..

Fortunately, customers then have an easy, friction-less, way to opt themselves in — or out — straight from their mobile phones with most text-marketing services.

Here are some of the advantages of mobile text messaging.

Benefit No 2.

Trackable platform: You can easily track the performance of each SMS Message and each campaign.

There are countless texting platforms that allow you to manage your campaign all from your desktop.

With the 2m-pmc Intelligent Growth SMS Marketing System, we provided a detailed report on the SMS messages sent, the scale of the businesses subscriber list and the number of messages that are successfully delivered.

As the Business Owner – you then see how each promotion or message sequence has performed - focus on the successful campaigns – ditch the ones that don’t perform so well, and continue to grow your followers and subscribers, - growing your business all the time.

Benefit No 3.

Interactive content: Mobile messaging makes it possible to get feedback from your recipients quickly via a quick tap on the ‘reply’ button or a click on your link.

You can deliver quick, simple messages that direct subscribers back to your site.

A short sweet message – built around providing value to your prospects and clients means that your open rates and the customer side engagement with your business will help rocket your client base and your sales.

You can send customers to a web site, to a sign-up form, to a specific campaign or offer – and through their proactive decision to engage with your business, you in return get them on your list of subscribers as a new customers – so you can market to them directly, with up-sell, new offers and new products.

It’s a short and sweet message – getting straight to the point with a free offer or incentive so they get value and you gain a new customer…. The typical and proven Win-Win approach….

And, of course, the whole system and point of delivery was built for the mobile phone – so there are no configuration issues, no sizing, no scaling, … - it just works !!!!! – And it is all perfectly optimised for the mobile.

Benefit No 4.

Immediate delivery: Once you press “send,” your message goes out instantly.

You can set up a campaign and have hundreds of messages sent to your tribe and to your customer base almost immediately.

You have a quiet day in the restaurant, so you need to offer incentives to fill up your restaurant on a Tuesday evening… You need to fill your calendar and appointments on a Wednesday afternoon.

The Solution to these dead spots in your business - Simple, - just send out the SMS message telling all your customers of the offer, the discount coupon or the reducing availability – and fill up those gaps fast…

Benefit No 5.

Personal touch: Sending a text message via your mobile device gives you an informal opportunity to personalise the message.

Personalising the message also makes the campaign more engaging. Use words like “You” and “I” is a great approach and technique for driving engagement.

If you know your customer base, if you know what they like, and then you send them all SMS messages offering them more of what they like - how cool is that ! What could possibly go wrong ?

So - The opportunities with SMS Messaging are endless.

You can personalise your message, direct users to web pages, videos, where they can win coupons, and track every step of the conversion process.

So Here's How It Works...

The basic components of SMS marketing

The two basic components of a typical SMS-marketing campaign are the keyword and the phone number. Here’s an example:

Text “PIZZA” to 555 5555 for our SUPER DISCOUNT CODE!

“PIZZA” is the keyword that gets placed in the body of the SMS message.

“555 5555” is the specific phone number set up at the SMS exchange that then manages the process. This logs your tribe and subscribers, and then from your own mobile phone, as the business owner, you can then text all in your subscriber list with an SMS message offering the next GREAT DISCOUNT, the next BIG EVENT, - or the recent NEW PRODUCT or SERVICE.

Your best customers are your existing customers – and marketing directly to them – to get them to engagement more often with your business – and spend more when they are there – is the most cost effect route to increasing Your Revenues, Your Sales and Your Profits……

All of this for the cost of a text message ! – Not a bad ROI – in anyone’s language….

The Opt In ...

When a customer sends that initial message, they’re “opting in” to your campaign. It’s as simple as that. From there you can do a few different things.

Go ahead and send them a single, automated response to follow up and let them know what to expect next. Or you can just add them to a list that will send additional texts over time.

For example, you could send. “Text ‘YES’ to receive weekly coupons.”

Once they’ve opted in, customers can also respond to your messages with sub-keywords.

For example, sending the phrase “Hours” could trigger an automated text to send business hours and “Stop” could remove the subscriber from the list.

Allowing customers to use sub-keywords gives them a way to interact with your business. It also enables them to opt out of your campaign if they wish to stop receiving messages.

Once you’ve got the basics in place, there are a number of added value elements that bring even more power to the process.

The best SMS Marketing tactics...

Mobile texting tactics can be diverse, but they should be pretty familiar if you are already running social media promotions and running marketing strategies.

The SMS Message is a great compliment to these platforms and marketing approaches – as you can drive the message to their phone – you are not waiting, or hoping, that they visit your web site, see your Facebook advert or latest catch up with your current marketing campaign.

For example, you can send coupons, drive traffic, or engage people through fun, simple games.

Here are some of the best potential uses for SMS marketing.

Top Tip #1

Coupons: Send customers exclusive deals.

Start by creating uniquely-generated coupon codes to prevent non-subscribers from taking advantage of your deal.

That way, people have to subscribe to save.

Check out this example, where a coupon code will be sent to the customer, offering a discount.

Plus, the subscriber gets an extra incentive for taking this additional step. Customers don’t have to take an extra step to pay when they want to rent movies.

Top Tip #2

Drip campaigns: Send automated messages based on how long customers have been subscribed.

Think of this as just another form of marketing automation.

You can create triggers or tailored responses depending on each individual’s status.

In the context of coupons, for example, you could send a 5% off coupon right after a subscriber signs up, a 10% coupon after three weeks, and a 20% off coupon after two months.

The longer they stick around, the bigger the potential bonus. So you provide incentives for the actions that you want, - and best of all, you can schedule these to run automatically.

One will be sent as soon as a customer signs up or opts in. That way, you don’t need to keep sending individual messages.

Top Tip #3

Poll your customers: Let your customers text different keywords to cast a vote.

With most services, you can run polls to collect responses over a period of time and graph the responses from your online dashboard.

These are relatively simple when you think about it but they offer an interesting content piece. You can add in links to quizzes or other content on your business web site, links to videos. – the options are only restricted by the imagination and the range of marketing strategies that the business wants to deploy.

You can use the results internally to improve your operations, using the data form the SMS exchange, the various promo campaigns and the resulting increasing in revenues…. The numbers will prove what works – what doesn’t, - and there is no guess work…. Meaning you can target your next campaign based on the successes and you can ditch the failures….

Or you can reuse the results in both blog and social content to leverage your unique, proprietary information.

The people who left an answer will also be more eager to find out what the eventual results were and even help you share them.

Top Tip #4

Run a contest: You can have customers sign themselves up for contest by texting a particular keyword.

Once again, this is a standard marketing tactic. You can select winners from everyone who opts in, or you can also give away a smaller prize to every person who sends in a text with your keyword.

You can even use it as an opportunity for cross-promotions.

Top Tip #5

Send photos and videos: In addition to general SMS texting, you can send images.

Let’s say you wanted to send an eBook preview or another image-style CTA.

This can be done a number of ways - with hyperlinks, tying together different elements of a coordinated marketing campaign.

Use Facebook to grow your SMS list

Instead of putting all of your eggs in one basket, use multiple channels to segment subscribers.

SMS and Facebook Ads are excellent on their own, but they can be even more powerful when you use them together.

I recommend checking out Facebook’s Lead Ads and Posts to integrate with your SMS Message campaigns.

Lead ads are great for collecting data and information to build up a large subscriber base.

Once we’ve got the basics in place, then we have a platform on which to build a host of smarter, automated systems, from Zapier integration to working with Chat-Bots… increasing your business presence and building greater customer engagement – All of which supports business growth, increased sales and increased profits…

Conclusions

So, let’s be honest, SMS marketing can be seen as old tech, and somewhat outdated, - but it has evolved a lot over the last few years.

Recognising how the use of the mobile phone has exploded, how the number of SMS Messages has increased globally, how social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram are an everyday part of the current "Normal" – then SMS Messaging has a big role to play for any business that works in the B2C or B2B sectors.

People carry their phones with them all day – some even keep them with them through the night. We get up in the morning and check the mobile before we make the first cup of coffee.

If we don’t have the mobile to hand – panic sets in, … with the fear in case we miss out on something.

So, by getting your current customers and all new customers to opt in, chances are they are there for life – to ensure that they are never going to miss an update or offer from your company ever again.

Start with exclusive offers to generate a huge list of subscribers quickly and with mobile messages, you can be sure they won’t sit unopened or unread for days like emails, - especially if they’re personalised for the recipient and sent from one of their great suppliers – their favourite restaurant, their favourite bar, their club, their gym…. The list is pretty much endless!

Use SMS to send coupons, poll your customers, run competitions, send photos, and drive sales. So, get creative with your text offers and watch your ROI grow fast.

Best of all, you can get started within around one week.

Sign-up, we take care of all the techie stuff, - we’ll get you a dedicated phone number that you manage from your existing mobile and then the scale of the benefit is really up to you…. So how far do you want to take your SMS Message Marketing ???

Use the 2m-pmc Intelligent Growth System – you know it makes sense….

2mpmc.com

2mpmc.com/intelligent-growth

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About the author

Michael Mallaby

I’m Michael Mallaby and I’ve worked in FTSE 250 companies, set-up a number of businesses, currently work with specialist Mergers and Acquisitions networks and Investor groups and have supported businesses, successfully securing +£millions in either working capital or equity backed support. Formal certification as a Risk Management Professional, an Association of Chartered Certified Accountants – ACCA Business Valuations practitioner and completed the Effective Angel Investor programme. Recognised as a subject matter expert in the field of Project Management, supported by MSc in the subject, with published articles in the global APM Project Journal magazine.

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