Small businesses find it challenging to earn a profit in a competitive market. They will need particular strategies to promote their business. From optimizing a site to appease the new algorithm of Google and creating an advertising campaign, you have to do everything. With several options, it can be difficult for a small business owner to choose the right strategy or tool.
If you need the best results, start with SMS marketing. It is not only affordable but also extremely useful.
SMS marketing for small business is different from other marketing methods. It allows companies to directly communicate with your customers through their mobile devices, smartphones, and tablets. From text messages to mobile check-ins, to social media and emails, mobile advertising can help small business organizations boost sales. When your customers get discounts or coupons, promotions or sales, they will feel motivated to shop from you.
Try to access your customers on their devices. It will help you to influence both walk-in customers and online shoppers. If you want to get the advantage of SMS marketing, here are some tips for your small business.
Text Marketing
SMS is for a casual conversation, but now businesses are embracing this as a promotional tool. Financial institutions send sensitive information via SMS. It becomes a powerful medium for businesses to promote their services. Over three-quarters of the smartphones of the world is SMS-enabled. You have to realize the power of SMS for your small business.
Create some opt-in campaigns for your clients to sign up and get rewards and alerts for joining your campaign. Your platform should encourage clients to take action after getting a prize or discount. As compared to emails, people open their texts quickly; therefore, mobile marketing can be a good choice for you.
Design a Mobile-friendly Website
Responsive design is essential for your website. In the absence of responsive design, you can suffer a loss of customers. Nowadays, customers prefer to use their smart devices to browse a website. Immediately design a responsive website to adjust the text of your site for mobile devices. Your website should read beautifully on a mobile phone, tablet, desktop or a laptop.
Create Mobile Apps
There is no need to worry about the expense of designing mobile apps. You can develop an app within your limited budget. With some research, effort and time, you can make this process affordable. There is no need to design a super fancy app. A famous firm may disturb your budget, so try to search for new creators. They are enthusiastic about getting new business to display their talents. Make a reasonable payment, offer referrals and website recognition.
Try to get a suitable app to address almost 80% of smartphone users. They can use this app to access your products and services. With a mobile app, you can represent your business to potential customers in a better way.
Rules of SMS Advertising
Before sending SMS to your customers, you have to understand the restriction of characters. Your messages will be restricted to 160 characters. A lengthy message (over 160 characters) will be broken down into small portions of 160 characters. Messages will be redrafted before their delivery to intended recipients.
A few networks may not merge or break messages and others can refuse to carry lengthy messages or deliver out of order messages. In these ways, you can’t communicate your message to your recipients. Send a short SMS to your customers. Lengthy texts may distract your recipients. They can’t engage your new and current clients.
Timing is Important
You have to select the right time to send an SMS to your customers. For instance, send a discount offer from your restaurant for food at the time of lunch. Select the right time for SMS marketing so that your customers can immediately take action. Try to send a promotional SMS to your customer when they are making a purchase decision.
Content of SMS
Your marketing campaign should have a phone number and URL. CTA (call to action) is vital for the success of a marketing campaign. With your SMS marketing campaign, you can’t send a fancy button or anchor link in your messages.
You have to tell your interested customers to make purchases with a phone number or a link. Make sure to add a URL or a contact number at the end of the text message. Use a URL shortener to manage 160 characters for your messages. It is essential to enable your buyers to act on their impulse.
Promote Shortcode on Promotional Materials
Regardless of the effectiveness of your promotional message, SMS marketing is a number game. The size of the customer’s list will determine the success of a campaign. With the promotion of your shortcodes on fliers and pamphlets, you can grow your marketing list. Use opt-in keywords to build a useful pool of recurring buyers.