Is your small business up to speed on text marketing?
Text messages are a cost-effective and highly versatile marketing tool that you can use to get your message direct to your customers. Done right, text messages can grab your customers’ attention, get them excited about your products and services, and galvanize them to take action.
So just what are the benefits of text marketing for your small business and how can you craft your messages for optimum effectiveness?
Benefits of Text Marketing
Your customers see a lot of marketing messages every day.
Finding a way to cut through the noise and get your message heard can be a challenge, and that’s where text marketing comes in.
A text message is personal, putting you in direct contact with your customers and positioning your business front and center on their phone screen.
The personal feel of a text message invites a response, be that answering a survey, making an inquiry or taking advantage of your latest offer.
As the article “5 Tips for Writing Effective Mass Text Messages” points out, nine out of ten text messages are opened within three minutes of delivery. That makes text marketing a powerful way to get your message seen.
Tips for Writing Your Text Marketing Messages
To be really effective, your text marketing messages need to be crafted with care to best express your ideas and increase the chances of a positive response.
To make sure your text messages have a better chance of working for you, follow these top tips:
- Identify yourself – It’s surprising how many companies skip over the obvious, like letting customers know who is texting them. Say clearly who you are, or you run the risk of your message being treated as spam;
- Keep it clear – There’s no room for fluff or filler in marketing anyway, but when you only have 160 characters you need to use them wisely and say exactly what you want to say. Your message should leave your customer in no doubt as to what you want them to know;
- Grab their attention – Open your text message with an attention grabbing offer or question to make sure your customers want to find out what it’s all about. Your opener could be as simple as a word – “offer”, “deal” or “exclusive”. Just make sure it commands attention;
- Offer real value – To keep your customers subscribed to your list, offer them real value in your text messages. Whether you’re offering an exclusive deal, a sale not to miss, or the chance to make their opinions known, your customers want real value from your text messages;
- Steer clear of text speak – Text speak looks spammy and amateur, which isn’t the impression you want your business to give. There’s no need to ramble either, but compose your message using good English and decent grammar;
- Make it exclusive – Reward your customers for signing up to receive texts from you by offering them something they couldn’t get on your website or in your store;
- Instill a sense of urgency – Text messages aren’t the kind of content your customers will return to again and again. Make sure your messages are effective;
- Include a strong call to action – Leave your customers in no doubt as to what they should do next by giving a strong and clear call to action. Do you want them to reply to a survey? Visit your store? Purchase a certain product? Tell them that in plain, accessible language.
Text message marketing is a useful tool that your small business can’t afford to overlook.
Get started today to benefit from putting your message at your customers’ fingertips wherever they are.
About the Author: Tristan Anwyn writes on a wide variety of topics, including branding, social media and text message marketing.