Bulk SMS: Tips for successful bulk SMS marketing || USMS-GH
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.
Contact Support for further assistance.
Bulk SMS: What it is and how businesses are using it
Bulk SMS is a great way to engage and interact with customers and prospects. People are more responsive to text messages and bulk SMS is a great way to get your business’ message across. Whether you’re alerting customers to a system update or looking to promote your latest product offering, bulk SMS ensures your message makes it to your audience and doesn’t get lost among the inbox spam.
if you really want your messages to be read, bulk SMS is the way to go. And with more and more online traffic coming from mobile phones, bulk SMS can be used to drive traffic to your website or e-commerce store where consumers can take action.
What is Bulk SMS?
As the name implies, bulk SMS refers to the sending of large numbers of SMS messages to mobile phones. To send out these high volumes of text messages in a short time span, a specialty service is needed.
Businesses can use applications, software programmes or an API integration with their website to send bulk messages. These services usually interact with a network’s SMS gateway to ensure messages are delivered no matter where in the world recipients are.
Even if your texts are going to 100,000 mobiles, bulk SMS messages are usually delivered within seconds of being sent.
How businesses are using bulk SMS?
Bulk SMS is used by every kind of business, from banks and e-commerce sites to traditional retailers and tech companies.
Campaigns can be used for entertainment, information or marketing purposes. Here are just some business use cases for bulk SMS:
- Collecting payments
- Offers, discounts and sale alerts
- Coupon codes
- Product news
- Election vote appeals
- Thank yous
- Service notifications
- Feedback requests
- Survey links
- App download links
- Internal employee updates
- Emergency updates
- Reminders
As with email, bulk SMS campaigns can be created and put into action in a matter of minutes. The immediacy of SMS allows businesses to react quickly to situations. Retail stores can drive footfall on a slow day or clear stock before the new season arrives. While marketers can promptly react to a competitor’s promotion or conduct damage control in a PR crisis.
Implementing bulk SMS for your business
The easiest way to implement bulk SMS is to use a solid and reliable tool. Here is where we come in. USMS-GH has just the tool you needed for the job- fast, reliable and affordable.
Once you’ve chosen your tool, you can simply open its app or web interface, sign in and type or paste your text message and branded link in. Most interfaces will show your character length and most services also offer the option to personalize your texts with the recipients first name, last name, as well as some more advanced options.
You’ll also be able to choose who the sender appears as and which lists you want your messages to go to. USMS-GH has great support for users to guide you through your bulk SMS journey.
How churches can use Bulk SMS service from USMS-GH
In our modern age, more and more people are connecting and communicating through digital means, one of the leading methods being SMS messaging, and it’s important to communicate how churches can use Bulk SMS service from USMS-GH
Using our simple, automated, and out-of-the-box bulk SMS solution, church leaders and staff can touch base with thousands of individuals with just the click of a button.
USMS-GH grants API access allowing engineers of churches to integrate their existing church marketing software with our platform. USMS-GH can get very technical with our API and/or keep it simple with our all inclusive inbox that allows simple one-on-one and bulk text messaging campaigns.
We’ve compiled some church promotional ideas that can be utilized to optimize your church SMS marketing campaign with USMS-GH.
1. Send Prayer Requests
When there is a need for churches to send prayer requests out and actually get them read, how do you do this? Using text messaging of course.
Your church community leans on each other through thick and thin. When the time comes that a member of your congregation requires a thought or kind word said for them, you can use bulk SMS messaging to kindly send out a request to the other members of your church.
2. Send Scheduled Service Reminders
On a weekly basis, you can choose to send out a scheduled service reminder to members of your church, and in turn, receive any information about patrons who cannot attend that week.
For example, during Easter and Christmas, churches see a lot of people at service. Have the pastor ask everyone to opt in to your contact group. Then, after Easter and Christmas, keep in touch with them by sending them Sunday service reminders.
3. Provide Daily Devotionals to Your Congregation
As a regular attendee and active member of your church, your community looks up to church leaders to help them work their faith into their everyday life. By sending out a daily devotional via SMS, you can provide members with a little reminder of their faith each and every day.
4. Give Reminders for Special Events
If your church has a special event going on, such as a family night or summer barbeque, you can send out an SMS message prior to the event acting as a reminder of the community gathering.
5. Host Contests for Your Congregation
Want to build up anticipation leading up to your next church service? Create a fun contest for church members. Perhaps for the next service, everyone who wears green will get a special gift. Have fun with your church promotional ideas by creating SMS contests!
6. Message Specialized Church Groups
Within many large churches, there are sub-groups who actively participate in other church-related activities, such as youth groups, men’s clubs, or women’s clubs. With USMS-GH’s business bulk SMS service, you can organize contacts into specific groups and easily communicate updates with these specialized groups.
7. Send Emergency Updates or Last Minute Communications
Emergencies happen. If this is the case, USMS-GH bulk SMS services can help you quickly reach the members of your church and communicate any last-minute updates.
8. Promote Holiday Services
Special holiday services, such as Christmas and Easter may occur at different times than your regularly scheduled service. Make sure that your members know by sending out a couple of SMS reminders surrounding the service so that your entire community can gather and celebrate together.
Whether you have a large congregation, or want a simple and accessible way to contact your entire church community, USMS-GH bulk SMS services can help you manage your communications and your church marketing with ease.
We understand how important keeping in touch and building good relationship with members is, that is why we created this platform with guides on How Churches can use Bulk SMS services from USMS-GH.
For further support, contact Support
Tips to improve your Text Message Marketing
Once you’ve legally collected subscriber numbers, you can send out an SMS text message marketing campaign. Here are some helpful SMS marketing best practices.
PROVIDE VALUE
In both SMS marketing and MMS text message marketing, there’s a reason your subscribers signed up for your texts. It may be to receive updates and information, but most of the time, it’s to receive value in exchange for them giving you their phone number. It’s essential to provide value in your SMS text message marketing campaigns to prevent subscriber churn and increase subscriber satisfaction. Providing value by offering an incentive to sign up is also a great way to build SMS subscriber lists.
Tip: State the offer first, then the texting details. For example:
Take [discount amount] off when you [take an action]. EXP [date]
GIVE A CLEAR CALL TO ACTION (CTA)
As a best practice, every message should include a clear call to action directing the recipient to take action. This is your chance to help your subscribers take the next step. A good call to action should include the action they need to take to receive the value.
Tip: The call-to-action should be cohesive with the offer provided. For example:
A store might want to increase foot traffic, so their call to action could be, “Visit a store today, save 15% w/code 67859.”
ADD AN EXPIRATION DATE TO INCREASE URGENCY
Especially for promotional text messages, including an expiration date is a text message marketing best practice to increase urgency and strengthen conversion rates. Without an expiration date, subscribers might not know when to redeem the offer, or worse, they might never take action.
Tip: Experiment with the language and placement of your expiration date. For example:
Try “END” or “EXP” for urgency and mix up the date notation; “END Midnight” or “EXP 12am Tonight.”
USE SUBJECT LINES
With MMS messages, you can include a subject line, a perfect way to add even more effective mobile marketing. The subject line can be up to around 40 characters, which allows you to really hook customers and entice them to keep reading the message. On some mobile phones, the subject line appears in bold type, so it attracts the customer’s attention to the message. In an SMS message, a subject line isn’t an option.
TAKE ADVANTAGE OF CHARACTER LIMITS
SMS messages have a limit of 160 characters per message. So be sure you get straight to your message to avoid long chains of SMS.
Get started with bulk SMS makrting now. Learn how to register on USMS-GH