Text message marketing is one of the most widely used and successful forms of communication today. Businesses and customers both benefit from the symbiotic relationship text message marketing creates. Text message marketing benefits businesses by getting their message to customers and creating two-way communication. Customers benefit from text message marketing by getting the information they desire from businesses they care about.
Now we all know that the exploitation of customers via text message marketing takes place. Therefore, whether text message marketing is a powerful tool or simply an annoyance is based on a customers’ and businesses’ experience with it. The positive or negative experiences depend greatly on the specific person and what they use text message marketing for.
What makes text message marketing so powerful for businesses and marketers alike is the ability to expand their reach. However, the same is true for people looking to game the system. Scammers always look for opportunities to take advantage of people. That’s why it’s so important to report scams. So, text message marketing is a powerful tool for marketers and customers that’s often exploited to annoy people at best, and scam them at worst.
Set Yourself Apart
One of the best ways to ensure that your business isn’t accused of and reported as spam is to make sure that you don’t look like or act like text message scams. Making sure not to look like a scam means you need to humanize your business’ text message marketing. Your communication needs to have a consistent voice and brand. Making sure not to act like a scam means you need to treat customers as individuals, not as nameless groups of people.
Not looking like and acting like scams saves you time, energy, and headaches. Start by having a clear plan. You need to figure out exactly what you want to accomplish with text message marketing. Do you want to provide customers useful information? Do you want to facilitate two-way communication between your business and customers?
After you decide on a clear text message marketing plan that outlines your goals, you begin to set yourself apart from not only scammers, but the competition as well. Choose text message marketing tools that help you accomplish your goals. Reach customers in a way that’s palatable for them and beneficial for your bottom line.
Connect with People, Not Customers
This may sound a bit counterintuitive to your business plan, but the fact of the matter is customers are people. Treating them like such will do wonders for your business. Although text message marketing allows you to connect with lots of potential customers you wouldn’t otherwise, it’s important to treat customers like people.
Figure out exactly what each person is looking for. Each individual person that you are lucky enough to have as a customer, has distinct needs from your business. Therefore, it’s terribly unwise to treat them like everyone else. People can tell when you are insincere or worse, generic, over text.
A good example is the following: a woman buys a handbag from your store every three months like clockwork. She doesn’t buy anything else. Now here’s the kicker: most businesses, despite knowing (through their point of sale system data) she only buys handbags, still send her text message advertising about all the items in the store and a coupon for 20% off of an item they’re having a sale on.
Now cross-promotion isn’t bad, but that’s not what we’re talking about here. They send generic advertising to a generic customer. But if a business looked at the POS system data, they understand that this particular person needs targeted advertising and coupons on one specific item. Treating her like a person, rather than a customer. And the payoff for such a change? More revenue.
Share Your Story
A great way for marketers in any industry to connect with people and turn them into customers is by creating and sharing stories. People love stories. They love something they connect to. Think about the most successful and powerful businesses out there – Google, Amazon, Apple, Wal-Mart. They all create and share stories.
The stories they share may be about a particular product or about the business itself. And people eat it up. They want to be a part of the business’ story whether they consciously understand that or not. Take a lesson from these businesses. Create stories that people identify with. Share stories that people relate to.
Text message marketing is a great way to share stories. Whether about a product or your business, stories humanize your brand. They make you more like the people you hope to sell products and services to. People see themselves in the stories you tell. Or even better yet WANT to see themselves in the stories you tell. Start by sending text marketing about your brand, rather than a specific product or service. Give people an opportunity to see you.
Text Message Marketing is a Powerful Tool
Text message marketing is simply another powerful tool for your business to use to connect with people. Use it to share your stories, get customers what they want, and set yourself apart. If you use text message marketing for this purpose, it won’t be an annoyance. Instead it provides you with loyal customers.
Make sure you keep your overall game plan in mind. Remember the things you need to accomplish. Learn the tools of text message marketing that help you reach your goals. And as long as you remain sincere and honest with people, your success is sealed.
