3 Text Marketing Tips to Raise Your Response Rates

Getting the word out fast about service changes, sales, or specials is a business owner’s dream. And fortunately, this dream is brought to reality with text message, or SMS, marketing. Adding text marketing into your customer communication strategy gives you a powerful tool that provides near-instant reach to all of your customers. 

With texting being a tool that consumers from any walk of life rely on, this is a very visible and highly effective means through which to communicate branding messages. Plus, it is estimated that 90% of text messages are read within the first three minutes. 

As we all know, a tool is only as good as its implementation. So, while SMS marketing has its clear merits in today’s tech-obsessed society, you will want to make sure you are following these three text marketing tips to maximize your return on investment (ROI).  

1. Understand What Factors Limit the Success of Text Message Marketing

A text marketing campaign should be a task that can be executed quickly and simply, and yet far too many text marketing campaigns fall short of expectations. Why? There are some very common examples of what should not be done when sending out marketing texts and range from appearing to ramble on without any point of offending the FCC. Some of the most common examples are:

• Adding links: Users are wary of the security risks associated with clicking links and may never feel comfortable using them. Not to mention, every time you move the conversation to another location you will lose people along the way. 
• Exceeding the limits of the recipient’s attention: The texts you send should be balanced between effectively communicating your message but not oversaturating your recipient. Be clear and be concise.
• One-way communication: This can again be mistaken as an unsolicited or malicious text and may be immediately disregarded 
• Not including an opt-out: For legality reasons, recipients must always have the ability to permanently remove themselves from your marketing list. Failing to do so can jeopardize more than just the success of your campaign. 
• Not managing clear opt-in and opt-out lists: Sending marketing texts to those who never agreed to receive them, or have opted out, is more than just being rude. The FCC and the Telephone Consumer Protection Act can leave you a regulatory lurch.

Failing to abide by these suggestions will ultimately lower the effectiveness of that individual text, or of the campaign as a whole. Now let’s look at a couple things you definitely need to be doing. 

2. Keep Messages Simple and Direct

Crafting the perfect message must balance brevity and detail; the customer must be given information relevant to your marketing campaign but the message must keep in mind the shorter character counts of texts—versus something like an email. Here are some examples of what you should include:

• Action item: What is it the customer must do?
• Discount code: Telling them what they get in return for interacting with the text is vital and this also helps you to track the success of your campaigns.
• Product or service photo: Pictures are a great way to create a more engaging campaign. 
• Urgency: How long does the customer have to react to the message? Because text messages are typically read much sooner than emails, they are a great tool for urgent promotions like filling tables in your restaurant or clearing out clearance inventory in your store. 

Including these essentials in your marketing texts provides you with a simple-to-use framework that can be built upon as your text marketing initiatives mature. However, successful SMS marketing campaigns aren’t exactly DIY, so having a helpful software tool is key. 

3. Use the Right Software Tool

Just as important as following a simple blueprint for what should and should not be in a marketing text is the set of tools you use to present your messages to the world. Having the right text marketing tool in your pocket can be the difference between a failed campaign and a highly-profitable one. 

There are a number of key features that you should seek in a text marketing tool to create and send engaging content. While the options offered will vary from tool to tool, they must at minimum include:

• The ability to organize clients and customers into logical groups.
• An incoming message dashboard. This is a critical tool, as you can expect text recipients to text back after you send your marketing texts.
• Auto-response tools to keep the engagement growing. Using this in conjunction with an incoming message dashboard takes your text marketing organization to the next level.
• Unlimited keywords. Having the ability to create the perfect keyword for a perfect moment further enhances your ability to craft the perfect MMS or SMS message.
• Surveys. Just how relevant are your texts? Are they reaching the right groups of customers? Surveys are a great way to learn how to refine your marketing strategy.
• Character limitations. There isn’t an industry standard, so seeking a text marketing tool that gives you the right amount of characters at an affordable cost per message is a foundational element that must be looked into.

While this list isn’t everything that you could be looking for in a text messaging solution, it will give you a boost to create engaging text content and increase your texting response rates. Incorporating these text messaging tips, and adding text marketing to your overall marketing strategy, gives your business an edge over the competition. With the right text marketing partner by your side, you can reach your audience in unprecedented ways. 

The Text Marketing Tips Learning Process Never Stops

Text marketing is an advertising tool that is constantly evolving to meet the expectations and interaction rates of targeted consumers. As you morph your text marketing campaign structures to be more in line with current text marketing best practices, it is important to take the lessons learned from the mistakes of the past while building a sound and proven approach to designing intriguing MMS and SMS texts that capture the attention of your audience.

Simplifying your text marketing processes starts with looking at the tools you are using. Industry innovation has introduced a set of text marketing tools that present you with a wide spectrum of options to engage and entice recipients to interact with your business. Getting all of this wrapped up into one, easy to use package can be further simplified by choosing a text marketing provider whose primary mission is to help businesses reach their audiences with ease and peace of mind. 

Jeff Winaker

Jeff Winaker is the CEO of NorthText. He’s passionate about helping clients reach their customers faster with SMS marketing. He resides in the Bay Area with his family.