SMS text message marketing — sending promotional content through SMS — is one of the best ways to engage consumers. Research shows that 54% of consumers want to receive marketing content via SMS, but only 11% of businesses send promotions this way. 

Discover how text marketing gives you a competitive edge and learn actionable ways of implementing it to boost customer engagement. 

Why You Need SMS for Engagement

We live with phones in the palms of our hands. That means text messages, which usually arrive with dings and buzzes, are an instant and intimate way to connect with prospects. It’s also a great opportunity to reach a wide audience, considering 97% of U.S. adults have phones. 

That’s not all. Text messages have a 98% open rate! Popular alternatives like email only have 15%–22%. Additionally, the average response time for a text message is only 90 seconds, suggesting high response rates. (For email, it’s about 90 minutes.) 

With high open and response rates, text message marketing boosts customer engagement and decreases lead-to-deal time. But just like any other promotional campaign, SMS text message marketing only works if you implement effective techniques. 

3 Proven SMS Text Message Marketing Tips to Engage Customers

Here are valuable tips to help you develop a winning SMS strategy that keeps prospects engaged and loyal. 

1. Personalize your SMS outreach

Gone are the days when businesses used to lump all customers and prospects into one homogenous mass. Personalization has become critical with increased consumer demand for relevant and tailored marketing content. 

Statistics say that 90% of U.S. consumers want personalized marketing content. About 80% are more likely to buy if a business offers customized experiences. Therefore, your SMS marketing campaign should make prospects feel you have a sixth sense of their preferences. Send them text messages that resonate with their needs and interests. 

To achieve that, you must dig into customer data. Then, use it to segment your audience based on:  

• Purchase history or previous interactions
• Preferences
• Last contact
• Interests
• Location

Information that’s relevant to one prospect might not be useful to another. That’s why it’s important to segment your audience. Segmentation enables you to deliver tailored text messages as if you read customers’ minds. Such a level of personalization boosts engagement and can even provide cross-selling opportunities. 

2. Obtain SMS consent before texting customers

Quick question: How do you react to emails from unknown senders? You don’t engage. In fact, you delete or throw them into the junk box. Expect prospects to do the same if you text them without permission. 

According to the Cellular Telephone Industries Association (CTIA), approximately 80% of Americans believe consent is vital before a business texts them. Asking for explicit permission tells customers you respect their privacy and the right to control the messages they receive. This establishes a foundation of trust and transparency, which are critical in driving engagement. If you text without permission, you breach trust and disengage customers. So how do you obtain explicit consent? 

A prospect agrees to receive text marketing messages by signing up through a form or checking a box when subscribing. That is if you collect contacts through a web form. To further confirm customers’ interest and avoid any potential spam complaints, it’s best to:  

• Use disclosure language wherever you collect SMS consent. Doing so ensures each SMS subscriber understands what they agree to before signing up.  
• Implement a double opt-in process. For instance, if you obtained contacts through a web form, you can require them to reply YES to an SMS prompt.  
• Use separate checkboxes (or buttons) when obtaining consent for email and SMS simultaneously.

Obtaining SMS content is more than just a matter of customer engagement. It can cause legal issues. Texting without permission violates the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and can lead to fines as high as $20,000 per non-compliant text message. So check marketing trends and changes to stay on top of compliance requirements. 

3. Respond to prospects quickly

Potential customers expect a quick response time. Hubspot research revealed that 82% of consumers want an immediate response to marketing or sales inquiries. Meanwhile, 90% want instant feedback for customer service issues. They want real-time communication. But is that possible in SMS consumer goods marketing, especially when swamped with leads? 

It’s possible if you implement technology that automates responses. A powerful tool like launch.ai’s Quick Reply is designed to help you respond instantly at the click of a button — directly from your inbox. 

Here’s how the tool works. You create follow-ups for common questions and responses from customers. When a prospect inquires, you just send premade, personable feedback and quickly move on to the next conversation. Lightning-fast responses benefit your business in many ways, including:

• Improved communication: Quick responses facilitate better communication with your clients. Handling customer questions swiftly and efficiently establishes long-lasting business-client relationships.
• Higher conversion rate: When you respond to prospects quickly, you demonstrate availability, responsiveness, and interest in their needs. This increases the chances of potential clients working with you.
• Boost sales: Fast responses reduce the lead-to-deal time. This enables you to close deals faster and increase sales.

Improve Customer Engagement With launch.ai

SMS marketing is super effective when implemented correctly. With high open and response rates, text messages increase engagement and fasten closing deals. This is true if you do the following:  

• Personalize your message to ensure it is valuable and relevant to the recipient.  
• Ensure your SMS campaign is permission-based for compliance and to avoid customer disengagement.  
• Implement technology like launch.ai for an automated process and lightning-fast responses. 

At launch.ai, we help simplify SMS marketing. Our text marketing platform enables you to reach and engage potential customers reliably and fast. With multiple text marketing platform providers out there, here’s what makes us stand out:  

• Our platform makes it easy to organize your contact list and customize messages with a customer’s first name for personalization.
• Our text marketing technology enables you to leverage the power of automation to streamline your campaign. 
• Our platform is TCPA-compliant to protect your business from legal issues. 

Launch.ai is the go-to solution when searching for how to increase sales in your SMS marketing campaign. Sign up to enjoy industry-leading message deliverability and high response rates!