As hard as it may be to face, sometimes even the most successful endeavors can fall flat or feel stale after an extended period of time. Despite what others might have you believe, SMS marketing is not exempt from this truth. Now, this isn’t to say that you did anything wrong or failed to keep your mobile audience in mind; just that sometimes switching things up can be the boost you need to reinvigorate a subdued contact list. To help you out on this front, here’s a quick overview on how to breathe new life into your SMS marketing operations.
Switch up Your Standard Message Rotation
At the top of the list of rejuvenating tactics, according to Shayla Ebsen of Promotion World, is the concept of switching up when you fire off promotional SMS messages to the members of your contact list. Naturally, this isn’t an invitation to completely disregard your consumer research and start sending out messages at odd hours of the day and night.Instead, see if there is a little wiggle room within the parameters of what constitutes your predetermined acceptable text timeframes. This way, your brand can generate a little buzz with a new schedule while still staying on the right path regarding optimal messaging sending periods.
Reimagine Your CTAs
In terms of the meat and potatoes of your text content, Ebsen goes on to suggest rolling out a new stable of calls-to-action (CTAs.) Like most other marketing practices, cycling through the same standard selections over an extended campaign – one that spans weeks and even months – can lead to consumer disenfranchisement and apathy.Whipping up a whole new set of CTAs is obviously a lot of work; there’s no reason to even sugarcoat this fact. However, the time and effort spent embodying this practice not only freshens up your SMS content, it also allows you to store your original batch of CTAs and rotate these assets back into the mix at a later date. This larger scale cycling can dramatically lower the resources that go into your campaign in the long run if you’re willing to bite the bullet on the short term obligations that come with this approach.
Scale Back and Refine Your Limited Content
While some might point to an increased deluge of content as an appropriate response to this receding engagement, this is often the wrong response. The reality of the situation is that a languishing contact list is generally a sign of a tired or overwhelmed audience.In place of beating these viewers over the head with additional content, consider scaling back and improving your limited offerings. Cutting your message volume down helps recapture urgency and excitement as consumers no longer grow to expect numerous selections. If possible, you’ll want to pair this method up with a flashy new promotion or discount that can help hammer home the notion that your brand’s new outlook on SMS connections focuses on driving value to the customer on their terms.
Add a Touch of Personalization
As far as minor tweaks and changes go, Business 2 Community’s Vic Dadson offers up the notion that going the extra mile with a little extra personalization can help re-engage these on-the-go readers. It might seem inconsequential now, but something as simple as adding in the name of the contact list member to the text goes a long way toward generating a more positive response.If you really want to leverage the full power of personalization, Dadson explains that there is a seemingly endless amount of ways to connect with your audience. Utilizing consumer data related to age, gender, occupation, purchasing habits, and even hobbies can help serve as the foundation for unique message content that speaks to the needs and desires of each segment of your SMS audience.
Reevaluate Your Stance on Opt-Outs
Finally, should you find yourself in this position, don’t be afraid to reevaluate your stance on the role opt-outs play in you SMS strategy, as well as the position of this information within your SMS content. Yes, this can be a hard pill to swallow at first when you start putting opt-out clauses and instructions into a place of prominence within these texts.However, giving the less active portion of your audience a way to disconnect from your list allows the overall quality of this asset to rise dramatically, thereby increasing the accuracy of your reporting metrics and helping your brand develop more impactful content. By adding this in with the rest of the tips and tricks covered in this post, you’ll have all the tools you need to breathe life into even the most lethargic SMS community.
