How to integrate SMS marketing into your cross-channel marketing strategy and multiply your chances for conversion.
A mobile phone is the first device that our digitally-native consumers check in the morning, so why not leverage this marketing opportunity through the power of SMS marketing?
When integrated with other channels, SMS marketing can multiply your chances for conversion.
For the last couple of years, marketers have been focused on where to find new leads and how to approach them in their natural habitat.
With most of the marketers’ ideal buyer personas being on social media and using email, these two types of advertising are still being considered the most direct and effective.
But wait, isn’t there something that mediates between your audience and their favorite platforms? Is there a kind of a medium that’s even close to their hearts?
According to January 2018 data, 3.7 million people are now browsing the web via their mobile phones.
It is the first thing they check in the morning and the main device for accessing their social media accounts and managing their emails during the day. So, why not leverage its huge potential via SMS?
Today we’re examining the unparalleled effectiveness of a single SMS text message and talking about how to make it a part of your cross-channel marketing strategy.
Is SMS Marketing for Business Still Effective?
With the advent of social media and the unstoppable rise of web-based communication, SMS for business has been wrongly marked as old-fashioned and ineffective.
In result, SMS marketing is now terribly undervalued and continuously overlooked. It’s a pity, considering how impactful SMS really is.
Moreover, in comparison to the email’s 15%, SMS messages boast an open rate of 97%.
And this is not only because nearly 5 billion people own a mobile device, or because 58% of them check their phone at least every hour.
It’s more because a modern-day smartphone is the ultimate cross-channeling gadget, allowing users to stay on top of whatever’s going on online and offline alike.
But when it comes to the mobile use, is SMS really more important than web-based messages?
In a vast majority of cases, yes. An SMS notification is the first one that most users check, simply because it implies a certain sense of urgency.
While social media messages are mostly informal, and emails are typically reserved for work hours, an SMS text message compels to be opened and read immediately.
Thereby lies its huge potential in the marketing sphere, still unmatched by social media and email.
What Is Cross-Channel Marketing?
By definition, cross-channel marketing is the “use of one marketing channel (such as direct mail or internet) to support or promote another channel”.
It’s not a new concept, but rather a time-honored way of making sure that the receiving end has acknowledged a marketing message.
The only fresh thing about it is that it’s now fully reliant on internet routes.
Cross-channel marketing takes the best from both online and offline worlds, thus leveraging a wide range of channels among which website, email, social media, and mobile boast the farthest reach.
Its main benefit is that it allows you to track down consumers and address them exactly where they are.
In addition, Mobile and SMS marketing can be easily integrated with social media and email, providing an additional boost to your internet campaigns.
For example, if your customer left your website without purchasing the product that he was looking for, cross-channel marketing will allow you to remarket the product by sending SMS notifications about the product.
It also reaches those users who don’t check their web-based channels as regularly as expected and reminds them just how important they are to you in the offline environment as well.
SMS Text Marketing as a Part of Cross-Channel Marketing
Providing you have a great SMS text marketing service to rely on, you can easily personalize messages and automate blasts in a way that drives and pushes your overall marketing strategy to its full potential.
For best results, connect them with campaigns that include your website, social media, and email.
Here are a couple of tricks and ideas to get you started:
1. Integrate Call-To-Actions with SMS Marketing
Since this is a personal channel that most mobile phone owners use for texting their friends and family, your SMS text message must always be short and sweet.
For marketing purposes, consider it as the equivalent of a comedic zinger – a message summary that’s succinct, convincing and exactly on point.
Does it sound familiar? Just because the same principles are used for writing CTAs. An SMS can be a brilliant call-to-action and deliver quick conversions and subscriptions, especially in combination with an irresistible website.
Simply write a great offer, add a link to your site, and put blasts on autopilot.
2. Send SMS Texts as Incentives by Pairing with Social Media
When paired with social media, SMS marketing can serve to incentivize leads and customers with special treats offered only to those who opt-in and subscribe to your text messaging campaign.
Lure them in with a great ad on your Facebook or Twitter that promises discounts, giveaways or coupons.
People who opt in will become a part of your SMS marketing list and CRM database, which opens a myriad of other opportunities for retargeting them during your later campaigns.
Add a unique code to every message, and invite them to claim their prizes on your Facebook page or directly on the website.
3. Build an Integrated Approach
Building an integrated marketing approach is not without its challenges.
The biggest problem you might stumble across is the consistency of messaging, which requires you to create a campaign around a coherent narrative.
In other words, SMS must reflect and complement all other channels that you use.
Considering that SMS text marketing implies a separate channel with separate content, copy-pasting messages from other channels will hardly get you anywhere.
If anything, it will only annoy your customers. Create unique content that’s suitable for SMS but matches your overall tone.
4. What You Text, When and to Whom
SMS text marketing gives you an amazing opportunity to personalize your messages even more.
These opportunities multiply when you integrate it with other approaches, as tracking two channels at the same time allows you to know exactly what to text, when to text it, and to whom to send the message.
Of course, you won’t be texting those who prefer social media chats or are already responding well to your email newsletters.
As for the rest of your audience, an integrated approach will give you some insight into what is the appropriate time of day to send SMS blasts so that they don’t appear spammy.
Conclusion
Knowing how to integrate SMS Marketing in your business and how to establish personalized communication with your customers will bring success to your marketing strategy.
Try to keep your text messages relevant to your targeted segments.
If you think that you are not ready to dive into SMS marketing and integrate it with your cross-marketing strategies, give us your questions?
Or if you consider putting all your efforts into SMS for your business, tell us why?
Or maybe you have aligned SMS marketing with your cross-marketing strategy and integrated to other channels?
Share with us your experience and tell us how you speak with your customers.
