5 Ideas for Awesome SMS Marketing Campaigns

With its low costs and incredibly high open rates, SMS Marketing remains one of the most effective direct marketing channels available. It is proven to improve customer engagement, boost sales and even enhance your reputation for excellent customer service. Although it has never been easier to use SMS Marketing, it is not always so easy to come up with great campaigns. To give you a helping hand, we’ve prepared a list of ideas.

1. SMS Contests

Let’s admit it, everyone likes to be in with a chance to win – especially when it comes to consumers. SMS Marketing lends itself perfectly to text contests, also known as text to win. The basic concept is that your audience participates in a contest or sweepstake to win a prize by sending an SMS message from their phone to an SMS short code. With fast entry and instant confirmation, it is one of the easiest possible ways for customers to enter a competition and has proven incredibly popular.

A text to win campaign is a great way to increase engagement with your brand and ultimately drive traffic to your business, be it physical, online or both. They are great for high profile publicity campaigns and can generate a great deal of hype if well thought out.

There are 3 keys to success with text message contests; have an attractive prize that is relevant to your audience, ensure it is well promoted in consumer traffic spots and make sure entry is as simple as possible.

2. Join the club

Another great way of fostering continued customer loyalty is to invite them to join a special VIP club by signing up to your SMS Marketing database. It really is as simple as it sounds, but it is a well-known fact that customers who feel they are part of a special ‘VIP’ group are highly responsive to offers and incentives and likely to become repeat customers. Studies also indicate that the cost of retaining customers is considerably lower than that of acquiring new customers – and with SMS Marketing the overheads of maintaining a loyal customer base couldn’t be lower.

Retail stores, in particular, have an opportunity to build a text club database from their foot traffic and find out more about the individual consumers who walk into their store and what they think about their products and services. A great example is shoe retailer Foot Locker, which runs a successful Mobile Club where VIP members receive early information on new products, along with news about events and special offers. VIP members can choose to control and customize the information on the brands they prefer so the club is personalized and relevant to each member.

3. Text to screen

Although it has been widely used in the United States for some time now, text-to-screen is a relatively new concept in the UK but is starting to pick up pace, in particular in bars, clubs and at many events. The idea is fairly simple – users text a message to a shortcode, and their message is displayed on large screens that are typically mounted on the wall or displayed on or beside a stage.

Text to screen can be used on its own to create great engagement for a brand or can be combined with a contest for even more hype. The screen offers a powerful advertising space for your brand, as well as increasing customer participation through the live interaction.

4. Updates and alerts

Text message alerts (also known as SMS alerts) are a great way to engage with customers with relevant information which keeps your brand top of their minds and makes sure that you do not disappear into obscurity. Text messages work for a variety of purposes – from telling customers about a great new product or the latest sales, bursts of news or simply keeping customers informed about an area of interest. SMS alerts can be used on their own or as part of a larger Mobile Club program.

The key is to encourage as many customers as possible to register their mobile details with you at the earliest possible stage of their relationship – but make sure that they understand what they are subscribing to in order to avoid getting into a compliance nightmare.

5. Votes, polls and feedback

We live in a world where everyone has an opinion and most people feel entitled to share it. So why not cash in on it in your SMS Marketing strategy? Not only does text voting offer a great way to engage consumers in the retail environment, it also gives you useful feedback on products or even the customer experience. With retail environments becoming more interactive than ever, mobile marketing is the natural next step for complete consumer interaction.

Consumers carry their phones with them practically 24/7 and check them almost constantly, so interacting with them in the retail environment is as easy as tapping into their mobile device.

Whatever the nature of your business, SMS Marketing offers a low-cost opportunity to increase sales and conversions and has proven to be extremely effective in terms of ROI. Not sure how to get started? Get in touch with the customer service team here at Fastsms today and we’ll be happy to connect you with an expert in your sector. Call now on 0800 954 5305 or feel free to contact us online. We’ll get you started in no time!