In the late 1960s, two marketing gurus came up with a powerful concept called position marketing. Al Reis and Jack Trout realized that an ingenious way to gain inroads to treasure troves of new customers was to identify key spaces or locations where a seller could gain the best advantage for its brand or product. The echoes of this highly successful marketing strategy live on in today’s Digital Age with something called bulk texting. This is especially true when “the space” or “location” is combined with the vast networks of social media platforms.
The Same as SMS Marketing
Bulk texting is also often called SMS marketing. SMS stands for “short message marketing.” Thus, the idea is to find efficient and effective methods to send “short messages” to highly qualified individual contacts.
Three of the best vehicles for getting that done are email, phone text messages and social media platforms. Twitter, for example, is the very definition of an SMS platform because messages are limited to a maximum size of 280 characters.
Numbers Don’t Lie
With our opening nod to position marketing in mind, consider that bulk text is directed to where the customer is already located and, more importantly, finds where their mental focus is concentrated.
In other words, you have their attention.
According to a recent Nielson study, the average American is looking at his or her phone for 280 minutes a day. That’s four hours per day. Just over 148 of those minutes are spent reading text messages and/or scrolling through social media platforms.
These two activities combined are 70% of mobile devices used daily. What this means is that the combination of a mobile phone and social media is a position marketing bonanza.
Standing Up a Bulk Texting-Social Media Effort
Can any business owner implement his or her own SMS marketing campaign? The answer is yes, but it’s almost certainly a better idea to hire a provider that specializes in this process.
Especially when it comes to large texting campaigns, a DIY approach will engender a steep learning curve. Most business owners don’t have the time or the in-house staff to get the job done right.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at some of the ways SMS marketing works and how it can powerfully leverage social media platforms to bolster marketing efforts.
CRM Apps
A Customer Relations Management (CRM) app is used to gauge the success of the text messages that are being sent. CRM collects data and then analyzes things like purchase history and demographics based on location. This makes it possible to send expertly tailored messages to the right customers. There are other demographic factors as well, such as age, ethnicity, profession and more.
For example, it’s a waste of time to market wrinkle creams to 18-to-22-year-old Gen Zers! Or, when a physical location is important, one does not want to waste effort sending messages to promote a brick-and-mortar site in Minneapolis to people in Houston.
Whatever the case, the use of CRM data and then applying it correctly is an important element in SMS marketing.
Solving Social Media Algorithm Struggle
Many people notice that they have a lot of people following their business profile or coming to their personal page on a given social media platform. Yet, it results in very little content showing up in the feed of the follower. It also seems to produce little action or increase sales. Call it the social media algorithm blues.
Texting solves the problem. That’s because it can be used to automatically send post notifications to followers. Now it’s possible to tell followers they are the first to know your new post is live. It alerts them and engages them in a more robust manner.
It prompts them to action.
Clear Message Content
Again, think of a Twitter post with 280 characters. That actually may be too long for a mobile text in terms of marketing messaging! In the latter case, 160 characters (not words) may be an outside limit.
What this means is that text messages must be radically brief. There are also several dos and don’ts, such as don’t send open-ended messages. The latter, for example, might be mentioning a sale without telling when the sale ends.
Clear messaging content must grab attention, urge action and finish clean -– at lightning speed!
Let Experts Help
Again, ramping up an SMS campaign is simple in concept but more involved and complex in execution. Working with a well-vetted provider is an excellent idea and a fast way to put this extremely powerful marketing tool to work for your company.
