Every project needs proper planning and it must be more immaculate and strategic when it comes to business marketing. Since marketing for your brand or business now is more dependent on the digital platforms rather than the traditional print and other media, you will need to follow a more precise plan. Of late, SMS marketing seems to have taken up the front seat in business marketing efforts which calls for a more strategic plan.
There are lots of benefits when you have a proper plan in place and follow it strictly. Some of these benefits are:
· You will be able to maintain the desired precision in your SMS messages
· You will be able to send these messages just at the right time
· You will be able to reach out to more customers
· You will have an increased scope of conversion and therefore increase your business sales and revenue and most importantly
· You will be able to follow the set standards and rules of permission based marketing.
Therefore, the need and significance of a clear SMS marketing plan cannot be overlooked. Starting from the basics is essential when you want to integrating mobile into your business marketing plan. These basics of mobile strategy include the “who, how, and what.” You will need to first find out the answers to these following questions before you start your bulk sms marketing strategy:
· Who are your customers
· Who are the others you are trying to reach
· Who will want to engage with the mobile messages you send
· What tasks your audience need to do
· What are the needs of your audience
· What specific mobile channels you want to use
· What is the tone or angle to use
· How to inspire your audience in the best way to get them involved
· Why do want to send your customers the specific information
· What type of information or offer they are looking for or will like
· How to send these message in a timely manner
· What is the right time to send these messages
· How will and you intend your target audience to access the mobile content
· What type of handheld device they use that you want to target most
· How useful will be the offer to your users in their daily lives
· How to make your offers more appealing and engaging
· Whether or not you want to cross-pollinate between the selected channels and if so then how
· Whether you want to increase the number of newsletter sign ups or generate more leads or make sales
· How can you create the best sharing opportunities and
· How can you fuel the momentum of the mobile marketing campaign?
When you know the perfect answers to all of these questions, you will find it very easy to determine, set and clearly define your SMS marketing goals. Once you have a specific goal in front of you, you must now make sure that it is SMART meaning it should be:
· Specific
· Measurable
· Achievable
· Realistic and
· Timely.
This is the nicest and simplest way to get started to achieve the best results from your SMS marketing campaign.
Use of proper channels
Taking a look at the available mobile channels and choosing the best and most suitable one according to your business needs is the next important step in your plan. Here is a brief list along with the features of each.
Mobile websites:
In several instances it is seen that several business owners create a dedicated sub domain for the mobile phones. When the domain address is typed on a smart-phone, the site will determine the inquiry source automatically and redirect the user to a mobile friendly sub domain. However, there are other business owners who prefer using the services of web hosting companies to maintain a low cost.
SMS and MMS:
When it comes to messaging you can choose SMS text message marketing or MMS marketing as well. However, there are two myths that typically surround SMS and MMS message marketing:
· First is that the regulations imposed in this form of marketing purports it and makes it more complicated and ineffective. However, these regulations are helpful to both the marketer as well as the consumer. It protects the customer from spam marketing and the marketers from any spam related accusations.
· Second is the fact that this form of marketing is permission based. This means you must always be completely honest about your SMS text marketing program and there is a need for a full disclosure and it is necessary to get everything in writing.
However, pondering the statistics that more than 90% of people who opt in for a text messaging program open and read a message within three minutes of receiving it, there cannot be anything more effective than this form of marketing.
Mobile apps: Using one of the countless mobile apps designed to serve your customers with attractive offers, informative tips and instructive snippets it will be easy for you to track your consumers and analyze their data even more effectively. This means that as a marketer you can achieve the following:
· You can boost brand awareness
· You can increase consumer affinity
· You can have a thorough understanding of your audience.
There are different free versions of such apps offered that you may use for your general audience and different ones for the paid subscribers to access more free add-ons.
Comparing SMS marketing
Yes, you can also increase your business sales by using the mobile coupons just like most of the growing businesses and make a distinct appeal to your consumers. There are several consumers who will seldom think about clipping or carrying a coupon from a print media to the store to redeem it.
When you use a mobile coupon, users simply have to show the coupon bar code to the cashier and redeem it once it is scanned just like a regular coupon. Of late, location based mobile coupons are gaining popularity.
You do not need the brain of Einstein for planning but you can surely take help of a professional SMS marketing service if you are unsure. Find out more information on an SMS marketing campaign.