Timing is everything in texting
Text messaging is a powerful communications medium. Because it reaches people with the communications tool they always have in their hand or pocket — their smart phone — 98 percent of all text messages get read, and most of them immediately. To get the biggest bang for your texting buck, you need to consider both the message and its timing.
No one wants to be woken up in the middle of the night by their phone’s chime, so overnight messages will backfire.
When scheduling your text...
Use keywords to connect with your audience
A powerful tool for building up the relationship between an organization and its audience is the combination of keywords and shortcodes in text messages.
You can use keywords and associated shortcodes to make it easier for key market segments to communicate with you and respond to marketing campaigns.
What are keywords and shortcodes?
A keyword is a unique word or phrase that your market can use to interact with you through a shortcode. For example, a coffee shop could prompt potential...
Call for action in text messaging campaigns
As a communications tool, we all know the power of SMS text messaging. It’s instant, it has a greater reach than any other communications medium, and people respond to it — 98 percent of text messages are opened and read immediately.
To get the most out of this powerful marketing tool, organizations have to ensure that their text messaging campaigns include a clear call to action (CTA).
While people read almost all their text messages that arrive on their mobile devices, they don’t always...
Clarify your message for a powerful text messaging campaign
Text messaging has proven to be the most effective way to reach large numbers of people. To achieve the best results in your text messaging campaign, you need to define your message.
We know that text messaging is the most effective communications medium today, especially for reaching the all-important 18-to-35 age market. Statistics show that the people send 20 times more text messages than tweets every day, and 12 times more than the number of Facebook messages.
That’s up to 6 billion...
Why send a text message? Define your goal
After knowing your audience, the most important part of an effective text messaging campaign is having a clear purpose, or measurable goal.
Everyone loves to communicate, but to make the greatest return on your investment in communications technology, you have to have a clear, measurable purpose in mind — a strategic objective, or a goal to achieve.
In fact, your text messaging strategy needs both long-term and short-term, or immediate goals. For example, your long-term goal could be greater...
Who are you texting? The importance of knowing your audience
The most important rule in any communications is “Know your audience.” The more that you know about them, the more effective your communications can be, and that applies to text messaging campaigns as much as to a speech, a broadcast ad or a brochure.
Text messages have much greater reach than any other form of mass communication today. Studies show that 98 percent of text messages get read immediately — an unmatched open rate.
But to create a text message campaign that is truly...
Tips for writing effective text messages.
In the last blog, we outlined some of the principles behind optimal text messaging, such as knowing your audience and sending messages that have a value or benefit for them.
But what about the wording — the actual message itself. Here are some tips you can use to write SMS text messages that your audience will respond to.
1. Personalize
SMS messaging with tools like Txtwire’s Manage allows you to send individualized messages to each person in your marketing lists. Make your messages appeal...
How to write an effective text message
SMS text messaging offers marketers many advantages over other advertising vehicle. First, SMS messages have a 98% open rate — five times higher than for email. That means that nearly everyone who receives your text message will take a look at it.
And that means they’re more likely to react to it. Marketing studies show that coupons distributed by SMS are redeemed eight times more often than those sent in emails.
However, SMS messaging has its own challenges. Here are some tips to help...
Consistency: Key to maintaining an effective brand
Businesses today communicate across multiple channels, media and platforms. To be effective, they have to tailor the communications to take advantage of the strengths of each medium, whether it’s broadcasting, social media or SMS text messaging. At the same time, though, it’s important to make sure that the messaging is consistent across all these.
How to do it
Maintaining message consistency across all your communications can be tricky, but there are some straightforward concepts that can...
Include SMS in your hot weather communications strategy
From barbecues to beaches, cottages to family car trips, summer is the season when people are outside, away from desks, work, televisions and the other traditional communications channels. So how better to communicate with people than through the devices they carry with them — their mobile phones and electronic devices?
High-quality SMS messaging allows organizations to stay in touch with their markets and key audiences no matter where they are. This summer, make sure your communications...