4 SMS Marketing Tips for Small Businesses

SMS marketing is a cost-effective strategy that offers small businesses a powerful tool to market their products and engage with customers. Many companies boast impressive response rates of 40% to 50% and click-through rates of 15%, with open rates soaring over 95%! These remarkable statistics underscore the effectiveness of SMS marketing, especially for small businesses. Crafting engaging and relevant content tailored to your target audience can help attract new leads, capture their interest, and establish trust within that audience.

Personalization plays a crucial role in SMS marketing success. By incorporating your recipient’s name or other personal details into your messages, you can create a personalized touch that makes customers feel like they are engaging with a real person rather than an automated bot. This personal connection is essential in building lasting customer relationships and fostering loyalty over time.

Customers appreciate feeling valued and receiving exclusive deals. By offering special promotions to customers whose phone numbers you have access to, you not only provide them with enticing offers but also strengthen the bond with the customer. This approach drives conversions and nurtures customer engagement and loyalty, ultimately leading to long-term success for your small business.

Just be mindful about how SMS is applied to marketing. When small businesses employ text message marketing, compliance with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) is crucial. Businesses must ensure that they inform recipients about how to opt out of receiving future messages to prevent sending unwanted communications. Additionally, it is essential to clearly communicate the purpose of the message, outline any terms and conditions, and alert recipients about possible charges that could arise from data usage. Compliance in these areas helps protect both the business and the consumer by promoting transparency and respecting recipient preferences.

1. Create Relevant Content

While the goal of this article is to highlight SMS marketing, pushing out content on social media channels and blogs should always be a mainstay in any marketing strategy. Creating content that is relevant and entertaining to your target audience can assist you in generating new leads by grabbing their interest and establishing trust with that audience.

Building your brand, responding to consumer questions, and providing compelling reasons for prospects to choose can all help you raise your close ratios. From articles to infographics to eBooks and even films, you should be showcasing your expertise, distinction, and brand values to attract potential customers and assist those who are currently considering you in making that purchase decision to convert them to paying clients. In addition, great material is frequently featured and back-linked, which means that by including it on your website, you can boost your domain authority. Utilize as many social networks as you can that are relevant to your target audience. Every message you send to both potential and existing customers represents your business. By creating personalized messages that include your recipient’s name, or other personal (but not TOO personal) details makes them feel like they are speaking with a real person rather than a bot. Customers want to feel like they’re getting a good deal. By creating special promotional deals for customers whose phone number you have access to, you’re not only providing them with a deal, but you are building a solid relationship with the customer.

2. Create Personalized Messages

Every message you send to both potential and existing customers represents your business. By creating personalized messages that include your recipient’s name, or other personal (but not TOO personal) details makes them feel like they are speaking with a real person rather than a bot.

The world is filled with automation, which is a valuable tool, but it doesn’t do any good when it comes to building a good rapport with customers. Your customers are people, and you want them to know that your business is ran by people too. Not bots.

Start your messages with the customer’s name and try to sound enthusiastic in your message. Your messages should reflect you and what your business represents. Make the customer feel like they are valued by your company, and they’ll keep coming back. 

3. Create Exclusive Offers

Customers want to feel like they’re getting a good deal. By creating special promotional deals for customers whose phone number you have access to, you’re not only providing them with a deal, but you are building a solid relationship with the customer.

While email marketing strategies have their place, text messages have a much higher opening rate.  This virtually guarantees that customers who receive a promotional text message will see whatever deal your business is offering at that time. 

A common strategy used by businesses that utilize SMS marketing is to ask for a phone number when customers sign up, then offer a discount code for the customer’s next purchase via text message. A sample message may read something like:

“Hello, _______! Thank you for purchasing our product/ service. To show our appreciation, we’d like to offer you 15% off on your next purchase. Use discount code 15OFFNEXT at checkout. Thanks again, and we look forward your business in the future.”

Tweaking this message to be as personal as possible will help with your customer engagement, listing the specific product the customer purchased, or even recommending another product they may be interested in based on their previous purchase is another good tactic.

4. Start Where You Are

Trying out a new strategy as a small business can be intimidating. Especially when you aren’t familiar with it. A lot of small business think traditional marketing strategies are what’s best for them because they seem familiar.

While this thought process makes sense and taking risks can be scary, SMS marketing is incredibly effective as long as you choose a quality SMS service like Cloud Contact AI.  Considering that the average American spends 5 to 6 hours on their phone each day, it’s no wonder that SMS marketing is so effective. Think about it. If you pick up your phone right now, you likely have hundreds (if not thousands) of unread emails. How many text messages do you let go unopened? It’s likely a fraction of the amount of emails left unread.

Trying a new marketing strategy as a small business may seem complicated, but CCAI makes the process simple.