It’s becoming easier and easier to advertise products through email, social media, and texting, but this also means that markets are more competitive than ever when it comes to maintaining subscribers and getting your message out there. Automated text messages are a great way to reach your audience and to drive sales through the roof. More personalized than TV and radio advertisements, mass texting is a great way to communicate directly with your customers. People generally like getting texts, and studies have shown that people are more responsive to mass text marketing messages than other digital advertising campaigns. The bottom line? Mass texting in a retail environment can turbocharge your marketing efforts and give you the results you’ve been craving. Read on for mass texting etiquette and best practices to ensure your company’s success.
Choose a Provider
Before you begin your text marketing effort, choose a provider that offers the services that you’ll need for your campaign. You’ll want to find a provider who makes it easy to segment your customers into groups, to send and receive texts, and to access analytics. Be sure to choose a trustworthy provider with a good reputation when it comes to helping retail businesses with mass texting.
After you’ve chosen your provider, you’ll get a short code. This is the five-digit number that customers will text a code to when they wish to subscribe to texts. Once your short code is assigned to you, you’ll need to choose a Keyword for customers to use when opting into your mass texting program.
For example, a mass text could prompt you to text “JOIN to 67076” to subscribe to a texting campaign. Once a customer opts into the texting program using the Keyword, they will be added to your list of contacts and will then be able to receive your mass texts.
Get Permission From Your Customers
In order to send information to your customers, you must first obtain explicit written permission from them. You can easily get this permission by including an opt-in button in your emails. Once customers have opted into your mass texting program, be sure to let them know how frequently you’ll be reaching out. You can also steer your customers toward opting into mass texting by using Keyword campaigns, for example.
Setting clear expectations will help establish a good relationship between you and your customers. Spamming your customers with texts that they didn’t agree to receive is not only illegal, but it also leaves a bad impression on potential buyers.
Let your customers know what kind of messages you will send and how often you will send them – and then be sure to stick to your promise. For more about how to create a compliant text marketing program, check out page 15 of this guide.
Cater to Individual Customers
Keep in mind all of your customers’ individual needs and concerns, and try to send out different mass texts to different groups based on what kind of consumer they are. For example, if you own a bakery, send information about gluten or dairy-free baked goods to customers who have expressed specific dietary restrictions.
Schedule your mass texts so that customers receive them at good times, rather than at inopportune times. For instance, late-night texts could wake customers up, while texts during rush hour could distract your customers during commute times.
Helpful Tips for Mass Texting
Text marketing is a low-cost way to send important information about sales, deals, and promotions. Coordinate your text marketing campaigns with email and social media so that your texts help to increase the scope of your emails. Create exclusive deals for customers who receive texting; this way, people will be driven to stay subscribed.
People love texting, so there’s no reason that you shouldn’t use it to help drive sales for your retail company!