Key takeaways
- Pair SMS with email, social media and paid on-site ads to raise awareness and funnel contacts to your mobile offering.
- Continuously test and optimize using campaign metrics. Track open and response rates, social shares and overall ROI.
- Ensure any links in texts lead to mobile‑optimized pages focused on value and usability (easy navigation and relevant, quality content).
- Promote SMS signups at industry events (trade shows, expos, meet‑and‑greets) with rewards or incentives so attendees spread the word.
- For smaller brands, build a local, grassroots following first (billboards, local TV, physical ads) before expanding outward.
Introduction
The majority of talking heads on the web can’t wait to tell you about how great SMS marketing is in terms of boosting leads and sales among your audience – and they’re right on the money with this claim. However, offering up this common knowledge isn’t quite the same as laying out some tactics and methods for getting to the point of running a successful mobile campaign. In an effort to reverse this trend and get your brand on track for mobile marketing success, here’s five straightforward tips to help your current or future SMS campaign generate more leads.
Pair Your SMS Operations with Other Tools
If you’re already firing off mobile messages to your target audience, Matt Silk of Target Marketing magazine suggests pairing up your campaign with other powerful tools. In a supporting role, email marketing, social media management, and even paid on-site advertisements can help raise awareness about your SMS offerings and ensure that contact list numbers always reach their potential. Considering how important it is to leave no stone unturned, it makes sense to utilize these tools and funnel as many people as possible to your brand’s on-the-go offerings.
Get Cozy with Metrics
Outside of getting the whole marketing team in on the act, Silk goes on to explain that you could be leaving quite a bit on the table in terms of leads if you’re not constantly testing and optimizing your campaign. Essentially, embodying this approach means critically evaluating each portion of your campaign via metrics that aim to tell the complete and unfiltered story of what’s happening on the other side of the mobile divide.
From taking note of the difference between open and response rates, to tracking shares on social media and your overall return on this investment (ROI), there’s a variety of metrics available to your brand that can help shed light on areas that are in need of improvement. The big key here is approaching this optimization process with an open, honest mindset and a willingness to do whatever is necessary to extract even more value out of your SMS operations.
Keep Your Website Optimized
If you’re including links to your site in any message content, it’s imperative that your domain employ the latest and best practices covering mobile site optimization. Considering how often Google likes to change up its search ranking algorithm – just look at the impact caused by the latest update, “Mobilegeddon” – it’s safe to say that this approach requires quite a bit of dedication to truly pull off with any measure of success.
As Zak Becker of Business 2 Community explains, the mobile optimization debate boils down to two things; value and usability. If the pages you link to your SMS marketing operations are easily navigated and contain relevant, quality content, then chances are you’ll be in good shape, regardless of whatever minor tweaks and changes come down from Google’s Webmaster team.
Deploy SMS Campaigns at Industry Events
In terms of finding new ways to deploy your SMS offerings, Lisa Cannon – also of Business 2 Community – suggests promoting your mobile marketing campaign at relevant industry events. From trade shows and expos to consumer meet and greets, providing rewards and incentives to those perusing the event is a great way to give your contact list a healthy boost. The best part? As these event-goers disperse and head back to their jobs and communities, they can serve as ambassadors and help spread the word regarding this campaign to others on behalf of your brand.
Start Local, Then Build Outward
As far as getting a fledgling campaign off the ground goes, Cannon also notes that starting local and building outward is a strong tactic. Whether you utilize billboards and other physical advertising space, or pick up spots on local TV broadcasts, building a grassroots following – especially if you’re in charge of a smaller brand – is an effective way to ensure that this kind of outreach campaign has a stable foundation upon which to grow.
Naturally, not all of these tips will apply to your brand, simply because there is no “one size fits all” approach to SMS marketing. But if you’re able to run out at least a few of these selections, you should be able to put your organization in a position to succeed with the people that matter most. Considering how important it is to reach today’s shoppers as they’re out and about, having this process on your side can definitely stand as the key to growing and enhancing your business outlook.
FAQ
Use these five tactics: pair SMS with email/social/paid on‑site ads, constantly test and optimize using campaign metrics, ensure your website is mobile‑optimized for SMS links, promote signups at industry events with rewards and start local and build outward via grassroots channels.
Use email marketing, social media management and paid on‑site advertisements in a supporting role to raise awareness of your SMS offering and funnel people to sign up, maximizing the reach of your contact list.
Track open and response rates, social shares of campaign content and overall return on investment (ROI). Constant testing and critical evaluation of each campaign element are recommended to uncover improvement areas.
Employ current mobile site optimization best practices. Focus on value and usability: ensure pages linked from SMS are easy to navigate and contain relevant, quality content so they perform well for mobile visitors.
Promote your SMS campaign at trade shows, expos or consumer meet‑and‑greets. Offer rewards or incentives to attendees to boost signups. Those attendees can then act as ambassadors and spread the word after the event.
Starting local helps build a grassroots following and a stable foundation, which is especially useful for smaller brands. Tactics include billboards, other physical advertising and local TV spots to grow a reliable base before scaling.
