SMS Marketing Strategy: New Communication Techniques and Channel Benefits

Creating an SMS marketing strategy enables brands to communicate via a less-competitive channel with more of a direct reach. As businesses design fully integrated digital strategies, engaging with their target market grows more challenging.

Statistically, social media and search channels face increased saturation. For example, the average lifespan of a Facebook post sits at a measly six hours with its organic reach declining to 5.2% from 7.7% in 2018. Meanwhile, Google runs approximately 63,000 search queries every second. This comes out to roughly 5.6 billion searches per day.

However, the evolution of the smartphone opened the door to new possibilities for SMS marketing. Not only can brands now reach consumers on their most direct form of communication, they can incorporate apps and additional linking features.

Understanding the SMS Marketing Strategy at a High Level

By 2026, there will be approximately 7.5 billion smartphone users on the planet. Naturally, many businesses realized this makes creating an SMS marketing strategy a high priority heading into 2023.

SMS, an acronym for short message service, entails text-message based communication. Through this channel, brands communicate with their audience via chat tools, alert prospective customers to promotional offers, share imagery, and ultimately, drive revenue.

Because SMS marketing is such a direct method of modern communication it boasts a massive response rate. In fact, texting a customer gains a 209% higher response rate than emails, phone calls, and other types of social media direct messages.

Features of Implementing an SMS Marketing Strategy

Response rate aside, an effective SMS marketing strategy brings highly advantageous solutions to the modern marketing game. Comparable to email marketing, SMS advertising can also be automated. Industry leaders like Podium and BirdEye contain a full suite of automation capabilities for sending out surveys, marketing promotions, and review requests.

In addition, SMS allows for easier net promoter score tracking (NPS). For the unacquainted, an NPS score offers a number from 0 to 100 (100 being the best), highlighting the proportion of customers with a favorable perception of your business. With consistent surveys, businesses track results and allow them to compile over time for a rolling opinion of where their operation stands in its customers’ eyes.

Podium and BirdEye also have webchat functionality. This gives customers the opportunity to interact with a brand via its website, increasing the contactability.

As a Podium partner, Rizzo Young Marketing receives discounted pricing for customers.

Lastly, mainstream platforms provide full data reporting capabilities. For instance, Podium breaks down messages by platform, date, time, template, and more. This helps to highlight long-term business trends and SMS marketing goal milestones.

Respect Customer Boundaries with Text Message Marketing

The rise of the SMS marketing strategy gives issue to an age-old challenge: proper communication. Frequently, we receive questions along the lines of “At what point does content become overwhelming?”

Pointing back to that Facebook lifespan statistic, the tolerance for content is actually much higher than many businesses initially suspect. Instead, the real challenge becomes making enough of an impact to be noticed in the first place.

All the same, this doesn’t mean that audiences don’t share their frustration with advertising. In a recent survey, 70% of millennials mentioned being frustrated with brands. The abundance of email marketing campaigns, irrelevant messaging, and at times, offensive views, created an online backlash of sorts.

Effective Communication Techniques for SMS Marketing

With SMS marketing, all of this applies just as easily, if not more so. For many, their phone message inbox is sacred. Disrupting that boundary creates more problems for brands. However, companies (and marketers) still have a job to do.

For those proceeding with their SMS marketing strategy, start by obtaining clear consent from your audience prior to texting them. In many cases, if a local business has a customer’s phone number, it was willingly provided at one point in time. However, many other companies scrape data from the internet, reaching out to unknowing prospects.

Secondly, build a data-driven strategy. Data is your friend. Too often in our line of work do we hear phrases such as “I feel like…” or “I think that…” While humans developed instincts through evolution, the modern age gave way to statistics that help us to make informed decisions. Over time, we develop data by testing send times, dates, messaging, branding, and other variables.

Thirdly, curate content and segment customer bases. Just like with email marketing, keeping your SMS list clean is paramount to success. By going one step further and segmenting an audience into relevant groups, brands receive 101% more clicks.

Launching Your SMS Marketing Strategy in 2023

As SMS marketing strategies grow more commonplace, brands seek to stake their claim before this channel hits its point of saturation. Currently, SMS communication provides a massive response rate compared to alternative marketing channels. But people evolve with technology.

Furthermore, reaching a target market requires nuance. Handled poorly, SMS marketing creates a negative brand connotation. Thus, automating SMS marketing and employing tactful communication make all the difference in a successful campaign.

To launch your SMS marketing strategy for 2023, book an Intro Conversation with the digital advertising and branding specialists at Rizzo Young Marketing.