Text Message Marketing

Text Message Marketing for Beginners

Matt Morfopoulos

5 Simple Steps to Text Marketing Mastery

How to close more deals, boost your sales, and keep your customers happy with conversational marketing techniques over text.

If you’re just getting started with text marketing, you’ve come to the right place. In this guide, we’ll teach you how to go from a beginner to a text marketing whiz in 5 easy steps!

1. Use the customer’s first name

This is the MOST IMPORTANT THING you can do to maintain a personal feel with your customers. In SMS Marketing, the most important thing to remember is that people are only engaged when they feel like you are communicating with them. And the only way to keep customers feeling like you are communicating with them, your messages have to be personal. If customers start to feel like all you’re doing is notifying them, they start to become increasingly less interactive with your messages. By using a customer’s first name, you are able to maintain a one-to-one personal feel, even if the message is going out to thousands of customers.

2. Introduce yourself

Whenever you send an SMS marketing message, you should always remember to introduce yourself, and who you’re representing. Something as simple as:

“Hey, Matt! This is Peter from Respond Flow...”

Engages customers far more than something like:

“Hey, Matt! This is Respond Flow...”

By using your name, it helps your message remain personal in the eyes of the customer. Remember, customers usually know that you didn’t type that message out just for them, but introducing yourself helps them feel more comfortable and more likely to engage with your message.

If you’re in need of another reason to introduce yourself in your texts, most mobile devices will suggest your name as a contact if you introduce yourself.

3.Stay casual

Don’t forget, this isn’t email. This is text, and it’s a whole different ballgame. 

With email, there's a major focus on formalities like correct formatting and making sure you’re always being "proper". Do not text like you’re writing an email. Texting is meant to be quick, concise, and personal, not elaborate with old-school “snail-mail” formalities.

Wrong
Dear Matt,My name is Peter from Respond Flow. I’m reaching out to let you know about a special deal that we are running this week, 9/30-10/6. If you sign up for Respond Flow within that timeframe, you will receive an entire month completely free! If you’d like to redeem this deal, use the coupon code “DEAL” when you sign up. Thank you for reading and I hope to see you as a customer soon!Best wishes,Peter Daggett
Better
Hey Matt, this is Peter from Respond Flow! Wanted to tell you that if you sign up for Respond Flow before this Sunday you’ll be able to get your first month completely free when you use the code “DEAL!” If you have any questions just text me back!

See the difference there? It’s so much more engaging when texts have a personal feel, remain concise, and get to the point without all the extra formalities

4.Don’t write a novel

While you may be able to write the next Moby Dick, you’re customers definitely won’t have the time to read it. Your customers are busy, and your message shouldn’t derail them from their lives for more than a few seconds. Try and keep your texts at a maximum of 240 characters, just like any post you’d see on Twitter. Your customers aren’t looking for more than a few quick sentences, they want you to be clear, concise, and engaging.

5.Communicate, don’t notify

If you’re looking for a great way to annoy your customers and get them to opt-out of your texts, blast them with notification only messages. When customers receive messages that only notify them of deals and don’t ask for any reciprocated communication, they will start to get tired of your messages and become less and less engaged with each message. Always ask your customers to respond to your messages, which can be as simple as adding: “If you have any questions, just text me back!” To the end of your message. You should also ask specific questions to gain feedback and determine individual customer tastes, but make sure to only ask one question per message. This will help you better target customers with deals and specials that feel personalized to them!

It’s that simple!

Just remember to stay personal, stay concise, and always ask for responses! Text marketing is supposed to be easy for all parties, so don’t overcomplicate things. If you’re looking to simplify your text marketing like never before, be sure to try out Respond Flow’s, simple to use for any business owner.

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