SMS Marketing: Ultimate Guide for Businesses (2024)
With its superior open rates of up to 98% (Source: Gartner), text messaging is one of the most effective ways to contact your customers directly. Our text-perts have created an ultimate SMS marketing guide just for you.
What is SMS marketing?
SMS marketing is a quick way to communicate with customers. Using an online SMS platform, you can send texts – to individuals or groups – and it’s just like sending from your mobile.
From personalising to scheduling messages, SMS platforms help you to easily manage, track and bulk send your campaigns. You also have the option to use a branded sender ID, so customers will recognise your brand straight away. This doesn't even scratch the surface of FireText's handy marketing features.
Different ways to use SMS
SMS marketing can be as simple or sophisticated as you like. You can send straight from your online account or from one of FireText's integrations for automated messaging. Some ways to use SMS include:
- Bulk marketing campaign - e.g. a sale, exclusive discount or product release
- Transactional message - e.g. an order confirmation text automatically triggered by a purchase
- Reminder - e.g. a text before an event to remind attendees
- Lead generation - e.g. promoting a keyword and short number on other channels to allow people to sign up to SMS
Top SMS marketing tip #1: Grow your database
Generate leads via marketing campaigns
There are lots of different ways to encourage new people to subscribe to your SMS list. Some of the tools you can use include:
- Website pop-up
- QR code
- A tap-to-text link
- A keyword and shortcode (e.g. Text TREX to 82228)
See our ultimate guide to generating SMS leads for a lowdown on your options.
Ask your customers directly
Or as our Cornish HQ team says, ask ‘dreckly.
It’s easy to collect mobile phone numbers for your marketing campaigns. If you own a shop, why not ask everyone who comes in? If you own a hotel, ask your guests. If you own a restaurant, ask your diners.
Top tip #2: Upload and sort your contact groups
You’ve collated your SMS contacts - whether through a lead generation campaign, sign-up form, or a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system - and now you’re ready to upload them to your account. It's super easy to upload contacts within your account.
The most common way to do this is using a CSV file, which can be imported straight from an Excel document.
You may want to upload a batch of contacts a batch at a time. For example, if you wanted to send a reminder for a table booking, you could upload contacts according to the week or day you want to remind them. You can then keep these in separate folders to keep sending as simple as possible.
Top tip #3: Personalise your texts with a {{firstname}}
When it comes to crafting your text, make sure you communicate with your customers the same way you would if they walked into your business. Demonstrate your outstanding customer service skills with a friendly and personal text.
A great way to do this is using the custom fields and personalisation tool in the FireText SMS platform.
These allow you to continue to send out bulk SMS marketing campaigns to your contact list while including personal details such as their first name. There are also extra custom fields you can use, allowing you to add any extra personal details from appointment time to event locations.
For example:
{{firstname}} = Meg
{{custom1}} = Mike
{{custom2}} = Tuesday 13th May
{{custom3}} = 1-2pm
This would look like this within your FireText account (left), and translate to something like this on the recipient’s phone (right):
Top tip #4: Keep your texts really, really simple
What makes SMS a great channel is its simplicity - and that means keeping your message snappy and sweet. Don't overthink it. if you're having a sale, promote the discount. If you're flaunting a new product, direct your customer to it.
The key thing to remember is that your business text messages don’t need to include all the information. The aim is to capture the attention of your audience in a short message while including the key points of your campaign, and injecting personality from your business.
FireText's character counter makes it really easy to track how long your message is. The system works on the basis that every 160 characters equal one SMS credit - serving as a gentle reminder to keep your text messages concise.
Hint: Avoid txt spk. U may thnk it’s cool and ez txting like this, but does it really reflect your company image? It’s also pretty difficult to read.
Top tip #5: Allow your contacts to opt in (& out)
Let's get the GDPR clear. A vital consideration when sending out SMS marketing messages is to make sure your contacts have opted in for SMS communications. And that every marketing message you send gives them the option to opt-out if they're no longer interested.
Our most popular opt-out option is the personalised opt-out URL. It would look something like this in your message:
‘Opt-Out? www.sto.pm/abc123.’
Top tip #6: Make it clear who the text is from
Your customers will want to know who you are. Make it clear by adding your company name in the 'From' field (sender ID) OR in the message body if you’re subscribed to a FireText reply number - which we explain more about further down.
Top tip #7: Call your customers to action
While you’re crafting your text marketing message, you can choose to include a call to action for further information. This could be a number to call, an email to touch base with or even a link to direct them to more information.
If you’re including a link, this can be personalised to your brand with a vanity URL - adding even more credibility to your message.
For example, for 'Pizza Italiano', a branded URL could look like this: 'sms.pizzaitaliano.co.uk/ABC123'
By including a clear call to action you will also be able to easily track the success of your campaigns, whilst ensuring that your message remains short, sweet and eye-catching.
Top tip #8: Receive replies from customers
There are different ways to let your customers text you in an instant:
- A reply number e.g. 07700900999
- Keyword on our Shortcode e.g. HELLO on 82228
Each of these options will let your customers reach you by SMS - sent directly to your FireText account for your to view and respond to. We can even set up a forward so that your replies are sent on to your email too, so you don’t have to check your account for replies.
People can text you for anything. Some popular uses of inbound SMS are:
- Join your SMS list
- Book an appointment
- Request information
- Enter a competition
- Vote
Hint: Like with all SMS platforms, the reply function means you cannot send from a brand name, as the customers' handsets need to have a number to reply to. In this case, it's just about making your brand name clear in the body of the message.
We can get you set up with a reply function in minutes, from as little as £9 per month.
Top tip #9: Set up auto-replies
When a customer gets in contact on SMS you can hit them straight back with an automatic reply to reassure them you’re there.
Auto-replies can be set up really quickly for all inbound messages to your SMS number – or even on specific campaigns by keyword.
Top tip #10: If you're using links, you can track them
The ability to track links is one of the most useful text marketing tools out there. FireText's 'track URL' feature allows you to track how many people have clicked on the link - and it shortens it for you.
In a world where precise targeting is vital, this is an essential tool - it means you can use your data to send targeted text campaigns to those who have or haven’t yet clicked.
With intelligent text tracking, we can show you how many click-throughs you get from your campaigns. It gets more intelligent than that – we’ll also tell you who clicked, at what time and using what device.
Also, if you’re tracking eCommerce in Google Analytics, you can actually track how many sales you’re getting from SMS too!
Top tip #11: Time your texts right
Grab a quick second to think when will be a likely time for your customers to choose your product or service – a little thought will go a long way.
Don’t be afraid to try some different ideas out too. This way, you’ll find the optimum time and content for your business.
For example, for text marketing messages, any time between 9am - 12pm on weekdays could be ideal because that’s when recipients may be checking their notifications and messages as the workday begins.
The same may go for any time between 5-9pm, where people are winding down after the workday and checking their phones. Similarly, late mornings on the weekends gives people the chance to wake up and check their phones before they head out to socialise or stay in to relax.
We know you won’t always be able to send the message at the same time you want it to be received, which is why we have a couple of tools to help you time your campaigns just right - including scheduling and repeating messages.
Top tip #12: ALWAYS send a test message
Before committing to a campaign, we always recommend sending out an individual test message to your own phone from your FireText account. This gives you the chance to view the content exactly how the recipient will see it. And you can make sure you are 100% happy with the content before committing to a campaign.
Top tip #13: Analyse your success with delivery reports
Delivery reports show you which numbers have successfully received your message and those that haven’t. This will help you keep on top of your data and filter out unused mobile numbers.
Download your campaign reports or keep them in your FireText account for later.
Top tip #14: Automate your SMS marketing campaigns
By now we’re sure you’ve become a pro at using your FireText SMS account. Let’s take it one step further and think about integrating SMS into your existing software.
Maybe you run a busy online shop, and you want to keep your customers updated on their order process.
Perhaps you run a restaurant and want to send a quick reminder so your diners don’t forget about their booking.
SMS is not only effective, it's highly reliable too. With the FireText SMS API, you can integrate your FireText account quickly and easily into your existing system. When an order is placed, let your system automatically notify your customers by SMS or configure your software to automatically send reminders.
Integrating SMS within your application can save you time whilst boosting your customers experience.
Top tip #15: Get top-notch SMS support
Our support goes above and beyond top SMS marketing tips. Your FireText account comes with a dedicated account manager - so we'll have the pleasure of personally supporting you with SMS content ideas and the platform's handy features.
Richard
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To get started with SMS marketing, sign up for a free trial account. Once you've carefully crafted your message, click send and watch the results come in. Enjoy that coffee knowing you've saved heaps of time.