Affordable SMS Marketing: A Simple, Budget-Friendly Solution

Smart Spending and Lead Generation

No matter what your company’s marketing budget is, creating advertising that maximizes your dollar is important.  The different SMS marketing solution and advertising options that are available create multiple ways for your customers to find you.  It is always beneficial for businesses to know where their money is best spent. I have always stated to businesses to include an SMS call-to-action that captures information of those interested or purchasing your product/service right on the spot of hearing or seeing that particular advertisement. It does no one any good if your ad airs on Television and the only information you know is how many estimated impressions your ad had and what the demographics of those folks could be.

In the world of sales, Account Managers want to pursue leads to up-sell, cross-sell, and to convert a lead into a customer; they don’t want to know how many impressions each different advertisement campaign had. Impressions can not only put a damper on your budget, but it can also force the business owner/manager to have to wait until the point of sale to actually track the sale back to the advertising medium, if that even happens.  You would then have to embed the “How did you hear about this offer” script into your cashier’s or sales rep’s heads and hope your team actually asks this question.  Keywords used in “Text to Join” campaigns are the perfect way to monitor where your advertising dollar is working and to manage direct leads through your Sales Funnel.  Customize each campaign by simply using a different keyword in each medium.

For each of your advertising mediums that incorporate Text to Join (i.e. television, radio, billboards, print flyers) choose a different word to text, allowing your marketing team to keep track of from where the business is generated.

It’s So Simple

An example of a Text to Join campaign that utilizes multiple keywords is as follows:

A recently opened dance club wants to bring in new customers.  In order to maximize exposure, their marketing team runs a radio ad, a few billboards, and print ads that all involve SMS marketing.  The Calls to Action that are advertised are as follows:

Radio:  Text VIP to 545454 for a 10% discount on bottle service.

Text BOTTLES to 545454 for a 10% discount on bottle service.

Print:   Text SHOTS to 545454 for a 10% discount on bottle service.

Billboards: Text DANCE to 545454 for a 10% discount on bottle service.

The different keywords that are utilized in each campaign allow the club’s marketing team to track the responses to each medium of advertising while minimizing the dollars spent on different campaigns.

The Benefits of SMS Marketing “Text to Join” Campaigns

The benefits of affordable SMS marketing reach beyond easy tracking.  Your dollars spent on SMS advertising also built a lead list from those that opted in to receive your offer.  You can reach out to these leads whenever you have an event, a promotion, or information from which those leads can benefit.  In addition to creating a contact list of people whom you already know are interested in your business and recognize your company name, the information you gather from the different text keywords allow you to create a database of information for your different advertising budgets.

With the simple use of multiple keywords, your company can make adjustments to the distribution of your advertising budget based on the ratio of responses from each different avenue of advertising. For example, you can base decisions to increase television or decrease billboard advertisements depending on the responses via text messages.

With the money you save both on advertising placement and on mixed media advertisement creation, you can reinvest the money back into your business or work on creating a better user experience for your clients. Becoming part of the SMS marketing world provides opportunities and benefits across the board.

Staying Ahead of the Game

Businesses know that advertising is a crucial part of survival in an ever-changing market.  An SMS ad that implements a call to action encourages potential customers to react while creating anticipation of their involvement in the business’s event or promotion. Once they have sent the text, they have more reason to follow through, opposed to seeing an ad that asks nothing of them and in turn forgetting it.

Maintaining interest in your business requires constant attention to the most effective and advanced ways of reaching new customers. Mobile marketing utilizes the technology of the cell phone, one thing that people are guaranteed to have access to no matter where they are or what time it is.  Whether they see an ad on television, hear it on the radio or read it in print, they can respond immediately via text, just as long as they are not driving!

Utilizing SMS Text to Join campaigns (aka Call to Action campaigning) is an effective and easy way to increase revenue, expand the reach of your advertising and monitor your advertising budget.  Through SMS marketing solution spending on affordable SMS marketing, your advertising budget can be maximized and your business will stand alongside the most advanced in advertising technology.