Text Message Marketing has become highly innovative and more popular in recent years with an absolute explosion in the Asian markets with regards to its utilization. It can be used to schedule appointments, send out coupons, and even order food. With the growing use of A2P (Application to Person) systems in place, and even Square being able to utilize these functions, there needs to be more dialogue around HOW SMS marketing should be used instead of IF. When used improperly, SMS marketing can potentially be a nuisance or damaging to a brand and company; however, when correctly harnessed, can bring new opportunities and touchpoints closer to the point of purchase than ever before. With this said, please ensure that all text messages sent out have some sort of way of opting out of the service to avoid being reported for spam. Most businesses incorporate some sort of “text STOP to opt-out of future text messages” or something very similar.
There is an opportunity to adopt some of the processes around SMS marketing to the Americas; however, there is a right and wrong way to approach text message marketing. Properly utilizing text message marketing can open the gateway to nearly 100% market saturation of a message as according to Pew Research, 97% of Americans have some kind of cell phone with 85% having smartphones. Text messages also have a much higher open rate, around 95%, than email and are also more likely to be opened instantly.
Companies are having customers opt into texting lists through various strategies including asking for it at the point-of-purchase, requiring it to verify accounts, requiring it for the creation of an account, and receiving special promotions & coupons. This allows the company to interact with these individuals on a more intimate level than email where the message may get instantly filtered out or deleted before being opened. Companies are also integrating these texts into their customer’s lives as nothing is more annoying than a cell phone going off for a surf company coupon when in the middle of a big business meeting. I’m looking at you SurfStitch. This process may be more refined by running it in tandem with geo-location, NFC technology, and time-of-day optimization.
What are some of the best ways of integrating Text Message Marketing? One of the best ways of using A2P text messaging is for scheduling purposes. This includes dialogue about the booking, a text message confirmation and a text reminder before the appointment. These are in no way seen as a nuisance and may be extremely beneficial to the customer as they may have forgotten about the scheduled engagement. The second way text message marketing is being used is to ask for reviews. Instead of an email that is much less likely of being opened, the text message is a quicker and better way of acquiring a response. These text messages usually have three options: ‘yes I loved the service I would like to leave a review’, ‘no I did not like the service I would like to send feedback’, or ‘maybe later’. These are usually sent on the day of service and may potentially be expected by the customers. One final way to incorporate text message marketing into a campaign is for coupon blasts; however, this method should be used extremely sparingly. If the frequency is too high, then most individuals are more likely to unsubscribe with a bad taste in their mouth than actually take action on the coupon making this tactic counterproductive.
How SHOULDN’T text message marketing be used? It should not be used to notify your audience whenever a new product, blog, or coupon gets released as their phone will be going off continuously and they will find this extremely irritating. Please use text message marketing with restraint as it is a very personalized approach with very interesting opportunities that can be lost with the customer’s trust.
With iMessage, Google Chat, Facebook Messenger, RCS (Rich Communication Services) Protocols from cell companies, and other replacements to SMS coming out, there are new evolving opportunities emerging every day within text message marketing. The new systems are all encrypted, have no character limits, real-time viewing, and the sharing of branded content. The last part is extremely important since it will allow companies to share images, GIFs, and videos of their branded content with their customers across RCS Protocols to create hyper-targeted ads on individuals’ phones straight to their text inbox. Companies could send out promotional information that was inquired about them including their website information, a business card, a short advertisement video, and a brochure straight to the pockets of potential clients. This strategy would be incredibly useful for companies that maintain high-level clients and would like to incorporate pull marketing tactics to their overall strategy.
As we watch RCS replace SMS as the main texting platform, it will be interesting to observe what other marketing opportunities will present themselves within this new platform as well as how individual’s behavior will change to adapt to this new platform. It will also be interesting to see what new platform is right over the horizon that will inevitably replace RCS in the distant future.
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