Friday, April 22, 2016

Content marketing, particularly via mobile, is a multi-faceted endeavor that requires careful planning, execution, and analysis. When it comes down to it, it can be outright intimidating, and often times we forget the details of a campaign while focusing on big picture stuff like ROI.

SMS marketing is a strong pillar for an effective mobile strategy. It allows businesses to communicate directly with consumers on their mobile devices, which affords greater personalization, timeliness, and geolocating.

Whether you’ve utilized SMS marketing in your content marketing strategy before or not, it’s worth investigating; and it’s worth pointing out a few commonly overlooked details.

Big picture stuff is important, but here’s a checklist of important details that should not be overlooked in your strategy:

  • Respect Your Customer’s Time
    This sounds like a no-brainer, right? But you’d be surprised at how many businesses don’t take this seriously. This isn’t just about making sure an offer is worth the time it takes to read it—it’s actually much simpler. Avoid sending SMS marketing messages before 9:00 a.m. and after 9:00 p.m. This means you need to consider your audience’s location and plan message deliveries around different time zones.

  • Make Offers Exclusive
    When you make an offer to your mobile subscribers, part of the value they perceive is exclusivity. They gave you their phone numbers, now your job is to give them something special—something they can’t get somewhere else.

    If your subscribers see the same offer on social media channels or on your website, you’ve inadvertently devalued the deal. Avoid this by using social media channels to feed your subscriber list. For example, on Facebook, ask fans to sign up to your mobile subscription before giving them the excusive offer.

  • Make a Relevant Offers
    Depending on the nature of the business, not every offer made via SMS will be relevant to your customers. For example, if you’re a software company, offering a discount or store credit is more relevant to your customers than free movie tickets.

  • Get to the Point
    Unlike other marketing channels, SMS marketing requires that a message be as brief as possible—often avoiding correct grammar or spelling, just to save space.

    This makes sense if you think about it—most people tend to read and text on their phones in short sound bites. Your messages to your mobile customers should follow this example. Be as economic with your words as possible, including your call to action.

  • Don’t Text Spontaneously
    It feels a little counterintuitive to schedule an SMS message, since most of us text throughout the day. But that’s not how you should approach your SMS marketing.

    Just like with other areas of a content marketing campaign, it’s good to plan your schedule, take a step back, and revisit your plans with fresh eyes and a critical perspective. The more time you have to review your choices and make adjustments to the details, the better.

Remember, the devil is in the details; when it comes to SMS marketing, those details are critical to your success. So, take note and make sure you review this checklist every time your devise a new SMS marketing campaign.