Opt-In Text Message Examples & Tips
When potential customers subscribe to your text communications, it reflects their enthusiasm for your products or services—an important step that may influence their purchasing decisions later. This is why opt-in text messages and other similar strategies are crucial for the success of your marketing campaigns and need to be created with thought and care.
When it comes to text marketing, receiving the consent of potential subscribers to accept your messages is a top priority. Since it is illegal in the U.S.—according to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) guidelines—to send marketing text messages to someone who has not opted-in to receive them, you actually cannot send opt-in text messages prompting recipients to join your list.
But, fear not. You are here looking for opt-in text message examples and this article is going to show you the best strategies available to grow your subscriber list—legally—and expand the reach and effectiveness of your marketing messages.
How to Gain Subscribers in Lieu of Opt-in Text Message Examples
SMS marketing messages have a 6X higher engagement rate than emails and recent SMS marketing statistics show that customers prefer to receive information via text as opposed to email. For messages that include order confirmation or tracking numbers, a customer usually provides contact details during the checkout process and, therefore, opts-in to receive relevant transactional text messages only, not promotional marketing messages.
So, now that we’ve seen that customers often prefer and respond well to text messaging marketing, how do we get people to opt-in to your list? Here are three key strategies you can use, in lieu of opt-in text message examples, to grow your list of subscribers and raise your text marketing ROI:
Create SMS Keywords
An SMS keyword is a unique brand-specific keyword for your marketing campaign that your audience can easily relate to. When customers text the SMS keyword to your provided number, they express their consent to receive your marketing messages.
For example, a pizza restaurant might put a sign in their window prompting customers to text the word “PIZZA” for a discount on their next order as a way to encourage potential customers to join their subscriber list. Such keywords can also be used on social media and via email to promote the latest updates or promotions for your business. This is a way to connect with your audience, so keep things simple but don’t be afraid to be clever and engaging.
Use Physical Signup Forms
If you have decent foot traffic in your store, you can always ask your customers to fill out their phone number on a paper signup sheet as a way of receiving exclusive offers or coupons. The conventional pen-and-paper signups at retail store checkouts still work and have proven to be an effective way to build a list of opt-in subscribers. People are generally happy to sign up but they are typically going to require an incentive to do so.
Use Signup Widgets
While physical forms can help increase opt-ins offline, digital signup widgets can leverage the online traffic you receive on your website. Pop-up notifications are effective in prompting your audience to opt-in for text messages, as well as email. By incentivizing opt-ins via coupons or giveaways on your website, you can further increase opt-ins.
I am sure we have all had the experience of being offered a 10-15% discount coupon from an online shopping website if we signup for email or text communication.
Additionally, to make things simple, some innovative SMS marketing platforms will offer you premade code snippets and customer support to help make including these widgets on your site as easy as possible, even if you are not technologically inclined.
Some Key Considerations
While these strategies are effective in connecting with your audience and converting them into your subscribers and potential customers, let’s solidify a few key considerations:
- Incentivize: By offering discount coupons, promo codes, giveaways, and more, you can reliably convert your audience/customers into subscribers.
- Comply with CTIA guidelines: As a business, you need to comply with the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA) guidelines that require obtaining a customer’s consent to receive your marketing messages. You must also be sure to provide a way for subscribers to opt-out at any time, should they choose to do so.
- Avoid aggressive efforts: Are you prompting your potential customers to receive your marketing messages too aggressively? Too many pop-up notifications on your website or frequent reminders through emails with opt-in requests can annoy your audience and make them leery of granting you additional ways to reach them.
Text messages are a proven way to engage better with your audience and improve the return on investment (ROI) of your marketing efforts. The strategies we discussed are guaranteed to provide results. However, you need the right SMS marketing platform to make the process easy and manageable with the highest ROI.
Using the Right Platform Will Set You up for Success
Before committing to an SMS delivery platform, there are certain features you will want to make sure you look out for:
- Unlimited keywords: Using many SMS keywords to appeal to different demographics you intend to target is a great way to improve engagement with them. The right text delivery platform will offer unlimited keyword.
- Auto-responders: When customers opt-in to receive your text messages, they expect real-time responses to their keywords and queries. An SMS marketing platform with an auto-response feature can help you effectively communicate with your subscribers and quickly provide them with the information they desire.
- Code snippets: To employ signup widgets on your website, you need snippets of HTML code to be embedded on your site to capture the responses of your audience, including their consent and phone numbers. The right text marketing platform can provide you with these code snippets for your website and make it easy to incorporate them.
- Technical support: A robust technical backend is crucial for building and maintaining an opt-in subscribers list. The right SMS marketing platform will provide you with APIs and code snippets and help integrate them onto your website. Additionally, they will have live, U.S.-based customer support should you ever need it.
You need to ensure that an SMS marketing platform follows the best practices for cellular compliance to help shield you from any legal issues. And, sending text messages through the right platform not only improves the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns but connects you with customers in the way they prefer.
NorthText can help you send effective text marketing campaigns while offering advanced features such as unlimited keywords, auto-responders, and code snippets. To learn more about how our affordable platform can benefit your business, contact us by phone or text at (312) 869-9070.
NorthText’s can help you send effective text marketing campaigns while offering advanced features such as unlimited keywords, auto-responders, and code snippets. To learn more about how our affordable platform can benefit your business, contact us by phone or text at (312) 869-9070.
