The Components of a Great SMS Marketing Campaign [Infographic]

Updated January 23rd, 2023

Are you ready to start connecting with your customers using text message marketing?

Mass text messaging is a great way to engage with people who are interested in your goods and services. You can offer value and build your brand reputation as your subscriber list grows. If you use it to its full potential, text message marketing can be a powerful tool to connect with your clientele and keep customers coming back.

How do you make sure you’re maximizing all that SMS marketing has to offer? It just takes a little bit of know-how to make sure your campaigns are as effective as possible. Plus, it helps to do your research and choose the best text message marketing service to make sure you’ll be getting the most out of every campaign you send.

Here’s what you need to be thinking about when you’re setting up your SMS marketing campaigns to get the best engagement and ROI possible.

Important Elements of an SMS Text Marketing Strategy

We’ve worked with companies large and small, and these are the top tips that we recommend for broadcast text messaging success.

Create value in every SMS marketing campaign & mass text message

Before sending out a mass text campaign, you should take a moment and be honest with yourself about the real value of what you’re offering to customers. This is one of the core best practices for SMS marketing strategy.

Always ask yourself, “Does this text create value for my subscribers?” If the answer is “no,” or “I’m not sure,” you should rethink the campaign and try to brainstorm an offer that would really help people in some way. Put yourself in the position of your subscribers. Would you like to receive text messages that are essentially a waste of your time, even from a business you love? Most likely not.

The key to this is not to make your messages about you — even if you have a really great product you want to tell your subscribers about. Messages that offer no value seem spammy and can quickly become annoying to subscribers. Make your text messages about your customers and what you can do for them. Stay on their minds in a good light by always striving to offer value and substance in your SMS marketing campaign — promotional texts in particular are great for this.

Lead with an offer

Text messages are meant to be short and to the point. When using an SMS blast service, you need to be efficient with your language and prioritize what you want to say.

State your offer upfront. Cut out extra fluff. Your customers will appreciate a simple and direct approach and be more likely to respond. What does that mean for you? An engaged SMS marketing list, which could help to ultimately improve your bottom line.

That doesn’t mean you can’t include a little personality at the end of your message. Just be sure to get the important information out of the way first. That way, your subscribers aren’t forced to keep reading to know what to do next. Invariably a percentage of your subscribers will only read the first part of your text message anyway, so you want this to be the most compelling. You might even consider using ChatGPT to write AI texts for you.

Include a direct call-to-action

A call-to-action is a basic instruction letting your subscribers know what their next move should be. It gives them direction and a push to get them going.

As simple as it may seem, including a clear call to action can have a huge impact on the effectiveness of your texts. Telling people what to do next takes away any questions or indecision that might pop up and derail your message. 

A good call to action leaves your subscribers with a direct path to redeem your offer and takes away any guesswork that may be involved. Be as clear as possible in your mass text message, and be ready to deliver when they take the next step.

Struggling to find words that you can use for your CTA? Here are a few words that encourage engagement and action from your subscribers:

• Click
• Purchase
• Order
• Reserve
• Buy
• Save
• Shop
• Submit
• Sign up
• Tour
• Try
• View
• Visit
• Watch
• Start
• Begin

Create a sense of urgency

How many times have you read a text and thought “I’ll reply to that later,” and then forgot about it? You don’t want this happening with your customers. They need to be motivated to act now and quickly. You can inspire action by including an expiration on your offer in your mass text message.

Creating a sense of urgency gives your customers an extra push to lead them to offer redemption. Give your offer a specific expiration date, or offer a limited number of redemptions for each SMS marketing campaign.

Use language to your advantage. Create urgency in your SMS marketing strategy by using words like “now,” “quickly,” and “fast” to get your customers on the move and into your store.

Make the offer exclusive

It’s important to make your subscribers feel as though they’re a part of something special. If an offer was available to anyone, becoming a subscriber seems less appealing.

A coupon or deal that anyone can access isn’t enough to make a campaign worthwhile to your customers. It needs to offer something extra as a reward for letting you into their inner circle. They also need to be motivated to stay engaged with your text messages over a longer period of time. You want to create brand evangelists.

That’s why it’s a good idea to have offers that you send only to your text list. This helps make your list very valuable which will prove to increase your open rates over time.

Mention your brand name

Your subscribers need to know who the text is coming from and how they can redeem the offer. Nobody likes receiving a text and not knowing who it’s coming from.

If your customers don’t know that the text is from you, your entire campaign is pointless. It doesn’t matter how great your deals are if your subscribers don’t know where to redeem them.

Include your brand name right off the bat in each SMS marketing campaign. You want to establish familiarity and build your relationships with customers. Dropping your name can help keep your business at the top of their minds. Additionally, it’s recommended that you secure your own short code to send your text messages with. Using a number that’s unique to you helps identify your brand and build trust with your customers.

Start Mass Texting with SlickText

Want to discuss how SlickText can help you to get started on the right path? Let’s connect — give us a call at 1.800.688.6290 or start your free trial today!