Bulk SMS
Bulk SMS campaigns should be targeted as much as possible. It’s likely the audience has already interacted with your business in some way or other – they may be a current user, have opted in for SMS alerts or previously purchased from your business. So this makes them ideal targets for marketers and research teams.
To help you engage with this more-than-warm audience, here are 5 tips for creating effective and successful campaign messages:
1. Keep it short:
Keep your message below 160 characters. Going above this limit could lead to your messages appearing fragmented on older phones. You’ll also be charged more. Shorter, succinct messages will make more of an impact on recipients anyway so there’s no reason not to keep things simple.
2. Showcase your business name:
You don’t want your texts to appear with an anonymous number shown up top. A text coming from your business name builds trust in your message and lets people know a text isn’t spammy or malicious. It also boosts brand visibility and looks professional. USMS-GH services enable you to edit the sender ID.
3. Personalize your messages:
Although bulk SMS campaigns are sent out in large numbers, this doesn’t mean you can’t personalize your messages. Most bulk SMS service providers will allow you to alter messages to suit a specific recipient based on the information in your database. Address people by their names, refer to an account number or mention the date and time of an event. Consider how you’d like to personalize your messages when creating fields for your sign up pages and database.
4. Include a branded link:
With just 160 characters to convey your message, it makes sense to shorten the link you plan to include in your SMS message. But don’t use a generic link shortener, use a branded link and customize it to drive clicks.
Branded links look neater and can boost your click-through rate by up to 39%. They receive more clicks because they are trusted and indicate where the link leads to.
Another big benefit of using a link shortener is that you can update your short link at any time. Once an SMS is sent, you can’t make any changes to the text. But you can edit the destination of your link in the dashboard.
5. Track and monitor your results:
Add UTM parameters to your branded links and you’ll be able to track precisely how effective your bulk SMS messages are. This will let you see which text, topics, and CTAs drive customer engagement. You’ll even see what leads to conversions. This will inform future decisions and let you improve each bulk SMS campaign you run.
Check out this piece on SMS marketing for more tips on ways to improve your SMS messages.
Beyond Bulk SMS
With increased targeting and personalization becoming more sought after in marketing and customer service messages, SMS messaging services have evolved to meet the needs of modern businesses. Alongside bulk SMS messages, many services provide other features like the sending of single texts for passwords, delivery status alerts, and verification codes. With the growing popularity of chatbots, some services also provide interactive messaging features. These bots can now interact with inbound messages that come about as a result of your outbound bulk SMS campaigns.
Though it has been around for a long time, bulk SMS messaging isn’t going anywhere soon. The high levels of engagement it receives combined with new features in SMS communications means it will continue to be a go-to tool for businesses of all kinds. If you haven’t started implementing bulk SMS campaigns as part of your marketing or customer service strategy, now is the time.
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