Every small business owner has likely heard of the importance of maximizing their marketing ROI. To this extent, small businesses are often called upon to achieve results with minimal investment, and consequently, with extremely small budgets. One option available to small business owners is SMS mobile marketing. SMS refers to short message service, but most of us have come to know it as “texting”. However, mobile marketing isn’t merely texting customers random messages in the hopes that someone, somewhere, will notice. Instead, it’s an extremely cost-effective, efficient, focused and highly impactful form of marketing. So, what’s the best way for small businesses to use SMS mobile marketing?
SMS mobile marketing can be an extremely powerful part of a company's marketing mix. In some cases, it may be so successful it becomes the company's primary method of keeping in touch with customers. Properly managed, it can be a non-evasive, simple and powerful marketing tool. So, if your small business wants to benefit from SMS marketing, what are the best approaches? We’ll start with the first one, buy-in from customers and progress from there.
1. Importance of Customer Buy-In
Small businesses must ignore the temptation of pumping out random messages and advertisements in the hopes of reaching an interested party. The best mobile marketing service providers understand that marketing must reach its intended audience for it to be effective. The ideal approach must be predicated on having initial buy-in from existing customers who are open to receiving these messages. Otherwise, your marketing conversion rates will suffer and your marketing message will miss its target.
2. Use Incentives, Rewards & Discounts
Every marketing & sales department must not only concentrate on closing sales, but on ensuring those sales are repeated. To succeed means to be strong in customer retention and build brand loyalty. Mobile marketing is a fantastic tool when looking to deliver customers pertinent information about existing product promotions, discounts, incentives and updates on reward programs.
If your small business wants to improve customer retention, then using SMS marketing can help. A number of my own customers use it to advise customers of the state of their account, to give them the first shot at new product introductions & discounts, or even just to advise them of best business practices in their market or industry.
3. Match Mobile Marketing Approach to Business Model
I’ve always advocated doing what comes naturally. A number of companies try to adopt strategies and approaches because of something they’ve read works for other companies in other industries. Unfortunately, rarely do these approaches make sense for the company. They try to fit a round peg in a square hole, so to speak. I see companies do this with their inventory management approaches and with their sales & marketing strategies.
If your small business is built around business-to-business (B2B) sales, then don’t adopt business-to-consumer (B2C) mobile marketing strategies. Stick to what you feel will work for your business model. If something doesn’t feel right, investigate it. Put yourself in the shoes of your customers. Would this message be appealing or annoying? Ask the questions that need to be asked and stick to matching your marketing approach to your business model.
The above video explains the differences between operating in a business-to-business (B2B) market versus a business-to-consumer (B2C) market. You can read more about choosing a marketing strategy that matches your business model by going to: Use Stage-Gate Process to Determine Best Marketing Strategies
4. Understanding Mobile Marketing Benefits
As mentioned, mobile marketing isn’t merely random texts. A number of companies use SMS marketing to deliver image & voice advertisements. Since most of us rely upon our mobile phone to remain in touch with what concerns us most, SMS marketing has an extremely high conversion rate. In some cases, it’s not uncommon for these marketing plans to boast a 90% open rate. It certainly makes sense. After all, when you get a message on your mobile phone, you’re likely to open it, read it or respond to it. So, just how popular is mobile marketing? Well, the fact is, it’s not relegated to just small businesses. Most businesses involved in B2C & B2B sales, are using mobile marketing.
Unfortunately, from a consumer standpoint, receiving far too many messages, or more importantly, receiving random messages, forces this approach to cross the line from being beneficial, to becoming a hindrance. Again, SMS mobile marketing can be a powerful tool if properly used. I myself get far too many text advertisements. Some of these come from companies I’ve only dealt with once, while others are from companies I’ve never even heard of. These are immediately ignored. The only ones I am interested in are from the companies I’ve given my approval to. The rest are looked upon as hindrances.
In fact, I’ve even made it a point to call and ask these companies to stop sending me these messages. Some listen, but a number of them don’t. In response, I won’t buy from them. Therefore, make sure your company's mobile marketing message matches your customers' needs and buying tendencies and most importantly, make sure you are comfortable with the message you're delivering.
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