SMS marketing is a strategy that is used to rapidly get promotional and other important messages in front of customers who are receptive to those messages. It is a highly effective method for acquiring and retaining loyal customers. The objective of bulk SMS marketing is to automate the delivery of impactful content at strategic times to a database of subscribers and/or permission-based contacts.
SMS marketing is a digital advertising strategy that when implemented correctly, can far exceed results and return on investment than can be achieved by any other marketing method. More people today prefer to get information from text messages on their mobile device. According to a market survey, email marketing carries an open rate of 22%, whereas SMS marketing has a 98% open rate. The most effective SMS campaigns are based on permission-based text messaging.
How to Profit from SMS Marketing
Various SMS marketing strategies can significantly increase results. Some of these include:
- Send SMS to a permission-based list at strategic times.
- Send SMS to targeted lists based on interests and buying behavior.
- Send SMS to coincide with a company’s marketing goals.
- Include your company name in your messages.
- Make sure you are compliant with SMS rules including an easy opt-out link with every SMS message sent.
- Use a birthday opt-in form to give a free birthday gift that your target market will want.
Some important uses of SMS marketing include:
- Short-term promotions to boost e-commerce revenues.
- Special discount offers for local business products and services.
- Event promotions including links to register.
- Incentives to make an appointment.
- Engaging contests with sharing incentives.
- Send HTML coupons that support clickable actions like click to call, buy, register and download.
- Increase company branding.
How to Send SMS from Your WordPress Website
A WordPress website offers a powerful, easy, and low-cost method of sending SMS to customers and prospects. An effective SMS marketing system with targeted campaigns can produce immediate results. Over time with consistent delivery of text messages that offer a value for customers, SMS will help a business to achieve a strong company brand. This will require the use of an SMS marketing WordPress plugin. But one SMS plugin for WordPress is not the same as the next.
Most SMS marketing plugins for WordPress will only send to a single list. This means the list is very general. It does not allow for targeting offers to specific lists where it is likely to produce a conversion. As an example, let’s assume that you want to send customer loyalty rewards to your most valuable customers. You will need a list to send to those loyal customers. Or you might want to send SMS to a specific list based on a customer’s interests or buying behavior. This could be a dental practice where you want to target patients who have purchased cosmetic dentistry services. With a general list only, those kinds of options are not available as everyone in your list will receive every SMS that you send. When subscribers get SMS that is not of value to them, they are more likely to remove themselves from your list.
How to Keep Subscribers in Your SMS List
Besides the ability to create and send SMS to any number of lists, a SMS marketing WordPress plugin with an option to use a birthday opt-in form will offer much more value. Most people will opt-in to a list to get a free or discount gift on their birthday. Such a list gives you a powerful opportunity to stay connected with subscribers through strategic SMS marketing campaigns.
With this type of opt-in form, a birthday list is created and associated with the form. The HTML form built from the plugin can be embedded on any page or post where HTML is supported. Then targeted traffic can be sent from social media, email and even direct mail promotions. Of course, the SMS Marketing WordPress plugin needs to support multiple lists and a birthday opt-in form which has additional fields to collect and store birthday day and month.
What makes a birthday opt-in form so effective is that subscribers will continue to receive your birthday gift every year, provided they do not remove themselves from the list. But besides automatically delivering the gift by SMS on the subscriber’s birthday, there must be easy and flexible management of the birthday gift within the SMS marketing plugin. This assures that subscribers will receive whatever gift is active in the plugin on their birthday.
The gift may be a discount on a product or service, but it should be something of value to all subscribers. It can even be a gift that is donated by another business. A great giveaway gift for local businesses might be a free dinner provided by a restaurant. This will increase foot traffic for the restaurant and can be co-branded to help both companies. The restaurant still make money with limited terms that can be included in a customized coupon also generated by the plugin.
In conclusion, using an SMS marketing WordPress plugin with features that include multiple lists, opt-in forms and a birthday opt-in form can be of tremendous benefit for businesses to increase profits, engage customers, and grow their brand. Strategic SMS campaigns sent to targeted lists can truly give businesses a competitive edge. It is the most effective and least costly marketing platform – one likely to produce sustainable business growth with a very high return on investment.
The SMS marketing WordPress plugin eZ SMS Blaster is the only SMS plugin that supports multiple lists as well as unlimited opt-in forms including a birthday form. Request a free demo to learn how it can help your business.
