Can I have yo numba?

SMS continues to grow in popularity for both brands and consumers. It’s easy for companies to set up, and for consumers to receive and use. 

Not only that, but SMS is effective. In fact, SMS messages have an insane 98% open rate, and 59% of people say that a promotional SMS has led them to check out a brand in store or online.

So you’re probably thinking, “Yes, I want some of that. But how?” When it comes to setting up your first SMS program, at the very least do these three things.

Grow your subscribers

For any marketing campaign to be successful, it needs a large enough audience. Unless you always knew you would eventually start SMS marketing, chances are you haven’t already been collecting phone numbers and text message opt-ins. So it’s time to start. 

Leverage all those channels you already use, like email, your website, and social, to collect SMS subscribers and build that audience. You can also add a popup to your website to grab visitors. 

Offer an incentive to get people to hand over their deets, like a discount, or position it as a VIP list with insider information and offers.

Anywhere that you are already collecting emails, you can expand the options to include a phone number field and SMS opt-in as well. And don’t forget to reach out to your existing customers and email subscribers to ask for SMS sign-up.

Create your welcome flow

Once you’ve started building your subscriber list, you want to have a welcome flow to send to them. There’s no magic number for how many messages over how much time, so you’ll want to test, tweak and optimize this flow over time.

Immediately when they opt-in, subscribers should receive a confirmation message from you, including the required compliance language for unsubscribing. And if you offered a discount for signing up, be sure to include that code.

Beyond that, what and when to communicate is up to you. Your welcome flow could include a highlight of a new or best-selling product, further details on your insider’s club perks, or other introductory information about your brand.

Build an abandoned cart automation

Abandoned carts is one place where SMS marketing works incredibly well. 

With automated flows, SMS has the power to reach customers with extremely timely messaging. So if a subscriber leaves something behind in their cart, you can hit them with a personalized reminder while your brand is still on their mind.

And since we’re all addicted to our phones, you know that message is going to reach them, even if they log off the computer.

Make more money

As you get more comfortable with SMS and what your customers like, you can begin adding new flows and get even more personalized with your messaging. But for now, this is a great launching point to start driving revenue from SMS. Just remember to keep testing, and you’ll keep improving!

And if you want more help getting your SMS marketing off the ground, our team would love to talk. 

P.S. don’t miss these things you need to know before you start SMS.