Holiday season is upon us! And you know what that means? It’s time to create a barrage of sales emails to promote your offerings — or maybe not? Sure, this tried and true method will get your offer in front of your audience, but with emails having an average open rate of just 22% and click-through rate of 10%, it alone won’t make the cut for reaching your big goals. So how else can you stand out and cut through the noise to grow your business?
Well, let’s just say making business personal can actually be a good thing… with SMS text messaging. With an average open rate of 98% and click-through rate of 36%, it’s pretty much a no-brainer to give it a shot, especially when you can try it out with Norby!
We’ve got some tips on how you can get started with upleveling your engagement and create effective text messaging campaigns that result in more conversions. Read on for the goods!
Get Permission
First things first, you’ll need to build a contact list of people you can message, but most importantly you’ll need to build this list legally. That means you can’t just upload your personal phone contacts to your text message marketing platform (Norby). The people in your contact list must consent to receiving text messages from your business, otherwise you can face serious fines of up to $1,500 per text (ouch!).
To build your list the legal way, you can encourage people to voluntarily opt-in to receiving text messages by using Sign Up forms in Norby. Be sure to clearly state what people are opting in for and send an automatic confirmation message that reiterates those details upon sign up. Pro Tip: In your confirmation message, include instructions on how your contacts can opt-out as well. The more transparency, the better, as this will help your audience build trust with your brand.
Decide Use Cases
Now that you have some folks to send text messages to, the next step is to decide what types of communications you want to deliver with this channel. Since email can be good for long-form messages, texting can fill the gap of delivering short, concise messages that announce promotions, encourage sign-ups, trigger reminders, or keep people in the loop with updates. Each of these represent subtle touch points that can keep you top of mind with your audience, as well as make it easier for them to access important links. Hello, higher click-through rate :)
No matter which use-case you choose, aim to keep the content of your text messages below 160 characters. Some characters (like emoji) take more space than others, so the actual limit may be lower. If you go over the limit, your message will automatically be broken up into segments. When that happens, it might be a sign to convert your content into an email or slim it down. Remember, short and sweet is the name of the game with SMS text.
Determine Frequency
This tip probably goes without saying, but just for good measure: do not spam your contact list by messaging too frequently. No one likes to feel badgered into buying or participating in something. A good rule of thumb is to send one message per week for promotional content — and this is on the high end. For follow-up communications such as reminders or updates on a specific offering, there’s more leeway to send multiple messages. The difference is that most people find it helpful to get updates on something they’ve already committed to versus something they did not actively choose.
If you notice a large number of people unsubscribing from your contact list, that could be an indicator of over-saturating your audience with texts or sending content that they simply aren’t interested in. Don’t get too worried, just get curious. Striking the right balance with your SMS text strategy will be a learning curve. The best thing for you to do is to review your analytics to identify patterns and be even more discerning about which marketing channels you use to achieve specific goals, whether it be awareness, education, lead generation, or conversions.
Be Responsive
Not only can you communicate with your audience, but they can also communicate back with you via Norby’s two-way text messaging feature. Get to know your audience more or deliver quick customer service responses on a one-on-one level. You’ll be able to track all interactions in your Norby Inbox and establish a standard for responsiveness that works best for you and your community.
When it comes to this, it’s best to take it slow so as not to completely disrupt your productivity in other business areas due to going back and forth with texting. A best practice would be to set times during the day when you or your team members actively engage in the Inbox. Win-win for both you and your community!
So tell us, do you feel a bit more prepared to incorporate SMS text into your marketing mix? The advantages are plenty and the prospect of your business being able to benefit from this feature makes the team here at Norby beam with excitement. To learn more about getting your Norby account set up for texting, checkout our Knowledge Base articles and How To Norby video tutorials.
Ready to get started? Join Norby today.
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