Marketing is all about customer engagement. Whether a prospect converts or not, every stage in the marketing funnel should hook your users to lead them to the next stage. And in doing so, personalization and the right content play a big role. So does the appreciation you reward your users with for their time.
When you use MMS and SMS marketing, your engagement process becomes even simpler because text marketing is known for its success rate. In this post, we’re sharing some innovative ways to communicate with your audience using SMS.
Smart Ideas to Boost User Engagement with Text Marketing
- Personalized Recommendations Personalization is a key attribute in marketing channels. Go a step ahead in the cut-throat race, and personalize recommendations in your favor. By understanding your user’s persona, make recommendations from your store that suit their needs and preferences.
You can use their purchasing journey and shopping history to make such recommendations. Say, a user joined your gym recently and opted for a customized weight training program. You can recommend your yoga sessions to complement their workout with the right mix of stretching and breathing exercises.
Example: Hi Jake, since you’ve enrolled in our weight training program, we recommend our weekend yoga classes. Reply “Yoga” to opt for a free session this Saturday.
- Gamification and Contests Sharing discount vouchers is an easy way to hook your audience and appreciate their association with your brand. You can bring in more fun by gamification of these rewards. Even better if you employ free competitions to increase participation.
Gamification is popular to impress users because it’s fun and challenging. The same applies to contests that promise good rewards without huge efforts and zero fees.
For instance, an SMS like, “Hi Annie, guess which one of our cars is participating in the SUV of the Year award and stand a chance to win fuel worth $100. Reply with the car name only.”
You can also text a scratch card link to the quiz winners and offer prizes.
- Surveys and Polls There’s no better way to improve your offerings than by collecting feedback with polls and surveys. If your survey is long, you can seek their consent to participate and share the survey link in the SMS with those who reply “Yes”.
For polls, you can simply ask your question in the SMS. Say, you’re launching a home automation system in the market and seeking opinions on this product’s name. You can seek a poll on SMS.
“Hi Jenny, which of the three names works well for a home automation system? Reply with your suggestion as A, B, or C, and stand a chance to win a lottery if selected.
Share the outcome by filtering the sensitive data, and close the survey loop. You can do so via MMS marketing with a beautiful graph as an image and make your users feel involved and appreciated.
- Early Previews and Access to Sales Your subscribers deserve extra privileges than other users and prospects. So, why not offer them an early peek into your sale?
Text a special link to your flash sale with your SMS subscribers to check the products and deals 12 hours before other users. Or you can offer them a voucher code in SMS with an extra deal that allows them to shop at your app a day before any other user.
Such early previews, a privilege to buy without struggling in the mad rush, and avoiding stock out are great rewards your users would enjoy.
- Reminders and Appointments Organizing an event and sending emails to your users? Remember that SMSes garner more eyeballs than emails, cold calling, and social media posts. Although sending reminders and accepting booking cancelations sound like typical use cases, they’re also the most effective tools for customer engagement with SMS marketing and communication.
Several users don’t check their emails daily or at the right moment. Your email reminder also gets buried in the spam or the deluge of important work-related emails. But SMS hardly goes unnoticed, whether your user is traveling, working, or vacationing.
An example could be: “Dear Eva, a home loan discussion with your bank representative is scheduled at 1 PM tomorrow. Please reply YES to confirm your availability or NO to cancel.”
Did you notice that the same SMS saved your user from making a cancelation call with only one reply? Everyone wants an easy way to cancel their bookings without making the hassle of calls and answering questions about the same.
Increase User Engagement with Text Marketing Today
If you haven’t started SMS and MMS marketing, it’s not too late. And if you’ve tried it but couldn’t have much success, we’re here to help. With 14 years of industry experience, Textmunication’s been working with businesses of all scales and in all industries.
Schedule a free demo with our team today and chalk out a customized plan to boost your customer engagement with SMS marketing.