When you’re leading a business, advertising becomes a big part of your life and not a day goes by without you hearing or saying something related to marketing. Within every business, there are people or teams dedicated to developing marketing campaigns and coming up with innovative ways to attract a certain target audience, but sometimes, the best thing for your business may be the simplest one.

So, when you start getting overwhelmed while reading about various growth hacking methods or ways to conduct subliminal marketing, perhaps you should return to the basics and try proven tactics like text message marketing. You should start by checking out the hottest trends in 2017 and find out about the little details that make this form of advertising so effective.

Texts Instead of Social Networks

Millennials like texting more other than any other channel of communication and, liked it or not, the future of your business will depend on whether they find you approachable. The previous generation was all about the efficiency of calls – dialing, talking and making any kind of arrangements in a couple of minutes.

The obvious question arises now – why not use social networks then, when every millennial uses them regularly? Although there are so many effective ways to use Facebook, for example, for developing your business, the fact is that people don’t scroll their news feed in order to check out new commercials and buy stuff, because they just want to connect with their social circle at the end of the day.

Personalize Your Texts

A phone number is a very direct way to connect with a member of your target audience and propose an offer to them. However, getting in touch with a person by sending them any kind of content isn’t really efficient.

Considering the fact that you’re using a very personal channel of communication, the tone of the texts your business sends out needs to in accordance with it. First of all, you need to understand that not everyone will appreciate this kind of privacy intrusion, so you need to be careful about your selection.

It’s like getting a text or a call from an unknown number – not everyone likes that and a significant number of people find it inappropriate. Therefore, your list of contracts for text message marketing should actually be a list of your clients or customers.

And, you shouldn’t stop at offering them a new service or a discount – creating a strong bond with your target audience is all about humanizing your approach, so you should definitely pay attention to significant dates such as birthdays. You can use quality customer service software that can keep all this data and serve as a reminder for those kinds of dates.

Pay Attention to Chatbots

We just mentioned humanization as a term, and it requires some special attention. People are quite tired of having to look at online pages. Lack of personal communication is exactly the reason why we advise businesses to go back to the basics – even smartphone assistants have voices now.

Chatbots are an efficient way to indulge your target audience by providing them with the pieces of information they demand by using a conversational tone and a friendly approach. By building a chatbot and integrating it to a cheap text message service, you’ll be able to supply any customer with news about your products and services, or precise directions concerning a subject they require assistance with, without investing any time or workforce in this matter.

Sense of Urgency

Naturally, you’ll promote your new services, offer great deals to your loyal customers and grant them various coupons and discounts. There’s one simple trick that’s very old, but very effective – adding a sense of urgency to your texts. Again, quite simple; that discount you’re offering to your audience needs to be limited with an expiration date.

This way, your response rate will climb up significantly and faster than you’d expect, and just because people are used to reacting well to good deals which are about to expire. It’s like you’re offering a rare collectible.  

Incentive and Open for Scheduling

Other than being friendly, you should also encourage your target audience to approach you by providing them with a personal assistant that will help them make a good decision about their next purchase, for example. Adding privileges to your services is a certain way to make your clients or customers feel appreciated and special.

Other than that, you should make sure to provide them with quick access to scheduling an appointment by leaving a contact link or a number that will enable them a one-step action that will lead them to purchasing your product or using one of your services.

SMS Geofencing

After a business receives permission to use one’s phone number and to send them texts, every time that customer is within a determined radius, they will receive a message that contains a discount or a reminder.

For example, the Guatemalan retail store detects when a customer is nearby and sends them a discount that’s on the clock, starting with one hundred percent. The timer stops the second you enter the store, so the faster you get there, the bigger the discount.

Pizza Hut looks for their subscribers which are within a ten mile radius twice a day, before lunch and dinner, and sends out their lunch specials or daily discounts for the next purchase which – of course – contains an expiration date. 

The thing is that you shouldn’t insist on consistency here – how can a great deal be offered every week if it’s so great? Somewhere between 1-5 texts per week is enough when it comes to text message advertising, but make sure that diversity is your primary goal here. It’s very simple to notice repetitive messages and even simpler to stop paying attention to them.

If used properly, a cheap text messaging service, combined with the pointers we discussed above, can bring some serious business your way. Just be careful when creating your list of contacts – don’t send out too many texts, be friendly and welcoming, and your business will benefit a lot from this type of advertising.

About the Author: Jessie Chantel is the digital marketing manager at Textedly, the world’s leading SMS marketing service provider. Textedly makes communication with your contacts easy and efficient. The service is beautifully easy to use and simple to afford.  For a detailed walk-through try 14 day risk-free trial.