Businesses are continuously looking for new and improved ways to engage with current customers and attract new customers within their target audience. While traditional digital marketing tactics, such as email marketing, have long been at the heart of business strategies, one method has emerged as an increasingly important aspect of effective multi-channel marketing for businesses of all industries.
With the increase in mobile technology over the years, text message marketing has quickly become a highly beneficial tool for businesses looking to attract new customers, retain existing customers, and deliver helpful information to members of their target audience who are interested in their products or services.
In this blog post, we’ll discuss what text marketing is, why it’s essential for businesses looking to improve their marketing outreach, and some of the benefits of text marketing for companies looking to improve their digital marketing strategy.
What Is Text Marketing?
In a congested digital world, presenting your business as mobile-friendly is incredibly important to attract new customers and stand out amongst the competition. Although text messaging has previously been explicitly used for individual communication, companies have begun to find the endless possibilities of text messaging as a digital marketing tool. As a result, text marketing has become one of the most straightforward ways of business communication.
Text marketing, also known as SMS (short message service) marketing, is a marketing technique that uses text messaging platforms to engage customers and generate sales. Rather than sending lengthy or multimedia-rich messages, text marketing uses text-only messages of up to 160 characters to share promotions, communicate time-sensitive information, send reminders, promote new products, solicit feedback, and more.
After customers or supporters opt in to receive promotional messages via SMS, businesses can send text messages to a large group of people at once. From there, companies can set up various campaigns, schedule automated messages, and track the results of their text marketing campaigns. SMS marketing can also be used for two-way communication, enabling capabilities such as digital customer service to better assist customers.
Text marketing has exploded in popularity thanks to the popularity of smartphones. According to a survey conducted by Statista, 52.2% of all online traffic was generated through mobile phones worldwide. Furthermore, SlickText also reports that 45% of customers choose a brand after receiving a text message, making SMS the choice of communication for many businesses.
Not only is text marketing a low-cost marketing tool with a good return on investment, but customers also prefer this method. In a survey by G2, nearly 83% of consumers want to receive text message appointment reminders, while 66% prefer to receive service updates by text. However, text marketing’s full potential has yet to be realized, as only 39% of businesses communicate with their customers via text, according to MessageDesk.
9 Ways Text Marketing Can Benefit Your Business
When it comes to engaging customers where they spend the majority of their time, text marketing has quickly become one of the most effective mobile marketing tools for large and small businesses. While other marketing techniques, such as email marketing and digital advertising, still provide considerable value, text marketing can reach customers more effectively and boost conversion rates at a fraction of the cost.
As text marketing becomes a crucial component of any successful business, here are some of the main reasons why you should implement text marketing into your marketing strategy.
It Has a High Return on Investment
Text marketing is a very cost-effective method of marketing. This is because the only cost associated with this marketing method is investing in a text message service, which you most likely already have for your company. Compared to other forms of marketing, text message marketing is a low-cost option that leads to excellent results, especially for new businesses that want to start advertising without spending too much money all at once.
It Helps You Learn More About Your Current Customers
Customers are accustomed to having their email inboxes clogged with marketing emails. As a result, these emails are often lost in the congestion. On the other hand, text marketing allows businesses to utilize mobile marketing to send mass messages to their target customers’ cell phones that help establish long-lasting ties with their customers.
Text marketing allows businesses to engage with their customers and learn more about which offers or promotions might interest them. If the offer is something your customers value, they’ll quickly understand that you’re only messaging them with content they find worthwhile.
Additionally, text marketing offers more than simply sending a message to a large number of people. This technique also allows companies to have engaging, one-on-one conversations with consumers, maintaining a human touch that is sometimes lost in marketing.
It Attracts New Customers
It Attracts New CustomersThe most challenging aspect of launching a new marketing campaign is finding the target audience. To succeed, many conventional forms of marketing rely on large numbers of consumers to provide a better chance of reaching prospective customers. As a result, this type of marketing requires the expenditure of a company’s marketing budget on messages that many consumers will likely forget or disregard.
Text marketing gives businesses a simple, easy, and dependable way to send a direct message to their target audience. Because customers have to opt in to receive your SMS messages, your target audience must first sign up to receive notifications about offers and promotions.
This option provides numerous benefits for businesses, primarily because consumers who receive your messages are already very interested in your brand, products, or services. As a result, companies don’t need to waste time or money messaging uninterested customers.
It Integrates with Other Marketing Channels
One of the primary benefits of SMS marketing is that it can be integrated with various other marketing channels. Whether your business uses customized email marketing or event management software, text marketing can be integrated with your company’s various platforms to connect existing contact lists and add them to your text marketing strategy to begin outreach.
Text marketing integrations aren’t limited to software, as they can also be linked to existing marketing campaigns to obtain more significant results. These integrations help businesses make the most of existing marketing strategies but can also help outline future marketing efforts and fine-tune the target audience for a stronger response.
It Reduces the Number of People Who Ignore Your Content
Another great benefit of text messaging is that your messages are more likely to be opened by your target audience. Promotional text messages are opened 98% of the time by customers, giving SMS marketing a better open rate than every other advertising option. Compared to email’s average open rate of 20% (read this blog post to learn how to increase your email open rates!), text marketing has become a no-brainer.
SMS messages typically contain only one or two sentences (unlike lengthy emails) and a link to a web page that provides the reader with more information about the promotion. Because the messages are so concise, consumers can digest them quickly (often on their lock screen), making them less intrusive than web pop-ups or phone calls.
Compared to email, average response times with text messages are substantially faster.
It Increases Customer Engagement
When it comes to customer engagement, text marketing is an outstanding tool for all kinds of businesses. Not only does it provide an opportunity to connect directly with the audience and build a personal bond with them, but it also helps increase sales and conversions by notifying customers about new products or services.
Text marketing aims to make your brand more accessible to consumers. As a result, it’s crucial that your marketing strategy makes your business feel like a crucial part of their lives.
Here are a few ways your business can use text marketing to boost customer engagement.
Coupons / Discounts
You can effortlessly offer discounts and other promotions to people who have subscribed to your text marketing list. The offer can be as simple as a 10% discount on one of your products, making them feel like they are receiving something exceptional.
Share Content
Creating content and promoting it online is difficult. However, text marketing makes sharing content directly with your customers easier. Regardless of the content you produce, sending your customers a brief text message to notify them is simple and straightforward and can be applied to any type of content.
Contests / Sweepstakes
Running a contest is a great way to get people interested in your brand and persuade them to take direct action. You can organize a contest or giveaway that offers small prizes, such as special discounts, for entering the sweepstakes, which encourages new subscribers to join your SMS list. This is an excellent low-friction way to collect consumer information and add them to your mailing list for future marketing needs.
Surveys / Polls
Customer reviews are crucial for every business and can significantly boost conversion rates. Fortunately, text messages are a convenient way to collect them. Send a text message to your customers about which of the products or services they purchased and ask them to provide an honest review about their experience. This gives them the impression that their voices are heard.
Newsletters
What area of expertise does your company specialize in? Use your knowledge to deliver value to your audience in a unique way with weekly newsletters. These weekly SMS messages can inform your audience about new content or promotions your business is offering and provide targeted insider information, such as behind-the-scenes looks or early access to announcements.
It Helps You Communicate Time-Sensitive Information
Another great benefit of text marketing is that there is hardly any wait time, and you can be guaranteed that your customers will receive your message as soon as you push the send button. Compared to email, average response times with text messages are substantially faster. This provides businesses with a significant benefit, mainly when providing customer service and time-sensitive information.
It Increases Your Trustworthiness
Legal compliances are higher with SMS marketing than email marketing; text marketing campaigns have to include an obvious way for customers to opt in or opt out of the campaign. While this may seem like a negative at first glance, it is actually a benefit. Because consumers have an easy escape route if they want to stop receiving messages, it makes your business seem more transparent and trustworthy, increasing customer loyalty. Not to mention that you don’t want to waste messages on people who are uninterested.
It Saves Time and Manpower
Lastly, text marketing allows your business to take advantage of automated capabilities that save you and your customers a significant amount of time. Not only can you create pre-programmed keywords that customers can text to prompt responses, but customers will not have to wait for a response, and you will not have to provide one manually. This dramatically improves the effectiveness of any SMS campaign and guarantees that your customers receive information when they need it.
Launch Your Text Marketing Campaigns with RSM Marketing!
With the explosion in popularity of smartphones, text marketing has proven to be more than just a communication tool. It offers a unique opportunity to brands looking to provide better digital experiences through mobile devices.
Not only is text marketing an easier, faster, and more productive engagement vehicle than other digital marketing techniques, but we believe that it will continue to thrive, making it a must-have component in any business’s marketing toolkit.
RSM Marketing can help you implement a brand new text message marketing campaign and take advantage of all the aforementioned benefits this digital marketing tactic has to offer.
We understand that it can be difficult for your business to stand out in a crowded industry. By combining innovative marketing tools with years of experience, our team of experts can help you execute a multifaceted digital marketing strategy and connect with new customers.
Reach out to us and put a meeting on our calendar if you would like to have a conversation!
