With smartphones' ubiquity, many businesses wonder if they should add text (SMS) marketing to their email marketing campaigns. The answer is a resounding yes! SMS and email complement each other perfectly and can increase your response rate when used together.
What is Text and Email Marketing?
Text marketing is an effective digital marketing strategy used to build brand awareness and reach customers on a more personal level. It involves sending short message service (SMS) text messages to customers or audience segments on their mobile devices after they have opted-in to receive messages. It is a great way to bypass other marketing noise like social media ads or email campaigns and go straight to the consumer.
Email marketing is a digital marketing strategy that uses email to communicate with potential customers. It is a great way to build brand awareness and reach millions of people quickly and easily. It involves sending promotional messages, newsletters, customer re-engagement emails, and abandoned cart summaries directly to customers' inboxes.
Email marketing has a high return on investment (ROI) of $36 per dollar spent, and it is still an effective online marketing strategy. It is used to cold-outreach potential customers, share long stories, and provide personalized emails according to customer preferences and history. Automation tools have made sending relevant and timely emails easier to the right person with the best offer. Additionally, emails are less intrusive than text messages, allowing recipients to read them whenever they find the time.
What are the benefits of integrating email and text marketing? How effective is email and SMS marketing?
Integrating email and text marketing provides many benefits for businesses. It allows businesses to cost-effectively reach their customers across multiple channels, providing a comprehensive marketing effort. Additionally, it is mobile-friendly, allowing customers to interact with businesses on their phones.
Furthermore, businesses can better understand their audience by combining feedback and analytics from both marketing channels. Finally, businesses can use one to grow the other, as they can use their existing email list to gather more opt-ins for newer channels like text.
How to set up a text message advertisement campaign?
Step 1: Choose your messaging goal
What are the different messaging goals for a text message advertisement campaign Broadly speaking, these can include:
Reaching customers quickly and efficiently, communicating a marketing message in a way that inspires action
Engaging customers on their preferred communication channels
Delivering short and simple messages
Providing relevant and valuable information, soliciting donations for nonprofits, announcing new products or sales
Joining conversations on social media.
Step 2: Choose a keyword strategy
Keyword strategy is one of the most important elements when launching an SMS message service. Keywords can allow customers to do various tasks, such as receiving directions to a business location, getting a link to download a mobile app, or gathering information. To successfully execute an SMS advertisement campaign, there are several keyword strategies to consider:
Ask customers to text a word or phrase to a specific phone number (ideally, a short code) to enroll in the service.
Use an auto-responder to ensure customers receive an immediate response when they enroll.
Set up and publicize keywords to enable customers to do other tasks, such as getting directions to a business location or an event or receiving a link to download a mobile app.
Use SMS messages to gather information, such as asking people to text you their first names.
Utilize SMS and email marketing in an omnichannel engagement strategy to build hype and inform customers about upcoming events or campaigns
By following these strategies, companies can ensure their SMS advertisement campaigns run smoothly and reach their target audience successfully.
Step 3: Set up autoresponder texts
Use an auto-responder to ensure customers receive an immediate response when they enroll. Welcome them and tell them what to text to unsubscribe (such as "stop").
Make sure to follow best practices such as setting up automated SMS sending, providing an easy way for customers to opt out, and setting up keywords to enable customers to do other things.
Step 4: Create a list of architecture, including marketing segmentation of your email list
Creating a list architecture for a text message advertising campaign is a straightforward and effective way to reach your target audience. Here are the steps to do so:
Identify your target audience. Consider factors such as demographics, interests, location, and other factors that can help you better understand who you should target.
Create a list of contacts. This can be done manually or using existing contact databases or customer data.
Segment your list. Segmenting your list will ensure you are targeting the right people more likely to be interested in your message. This is also called marketing segmentation.
Develop a message. This could be a simple text message or a more complex campaign with images, videos, and other content.
Design your message. Use a pre-built template, custom design, or combination of the two to create a message optimized for mobile devices.
Add modules. You can add text modules, image modules, buttons, and social buttons to your message.
Apply a theme. Choose one of the six available themes to give your message a unified look and feel.
Preview your message. You can preview your message on the web and mobile devices to ensure everything looks as intended.
Send the message. Depending on your selected delivery method, you can either send the message or take additional steps to set up the text message campaign.
By following these steps, you can create a list architecture for a text message advertising campaign that is both effective and efficient.
Step 5: Optimize the message copy
Optimizing message copy can help with a text message advertisement campaign by ensuring the copy remains short and simple yet straightforward. Having concise messages that grab the user’s attention can help to effectively communicate the marketing message and close with a call to action (CTA).
Additionally, as SMS messages have a 160-character limit, it is important to ensure that campaigns are within that limit. Doing so makes users more likely to read the message and respond positively to the call to action.
Furthermore, by providing an unsubscribe link or a “STOP” option, users are more willing to opt into the text message campaign.
Step 6: Optimize the delivery channel
Determine which channels you want to use to advertise. You may consider using SMS, MMS, WhatsApp, email, social media, SEO, and paid ads.
Schedule text message campaigns for future delivery. This way, you can ensure that the message will be sent on the optimal day and time.
Use link shortening to include your company name within the URL for increased deliverability and trust.
Track link clicks for data analysis, A/B testing, and optimizing your campaign ROI.
Take advantage of cross-channel marketing by preparing potential customers for upcoming announcements via text before sending more details via email.
Generate excitement for an upcoming email via text messages so that people are more likely to open the email.
Step 7: Combine your SMS and email marketing campaigns with other marketing channels, such as social media, SEO, and paid ads.
Step 7: Monitor and improve on the metrics that matter
Analyze your text message advertising campaign to see what’s working and what isn’t. Start by looking at the metrics that will give you the most accurate picture of success, such as open rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates.
Set Up Benchmarks
Set up benchmarks for your text message advertisement campaign by comparing your metrics with industry averages. That way, you know what you’re working towards and what you need to improve.
A/B Test Your Campaign
A/B testing your text message advertising campaign can help you determine what works, what doesn’t, and what needs to be tweaked. Experiment with different visuals, messaging, send times, senders, etc., to see what resonates with your audience.
Use Cross-Channel Clarity
Ensure cross-channel clarity by keeping track of data from separate platforms. With Klaviyo, you’ll know exactly what’s driving results and have the ability to compare email and SMS metrics.
Monitor Your Results
Continuously monitor the success of your text message advertisement campaign by keeping an eye on all your engagement metrics. This way, you’ll be able to make improvements on the way to success.
Step 8: Ensure compliance with anti-spam laws
Set up your text message advertisement campaign with a reputable third-party service to ensure compliance with anti-spam laws.
Be strategic about email collection and never buy email lists, as it can harm your email deliverability and IP reputation.
Follow applicable laws when sending emails to recipients in other countries, such as CAN-SPAM or GDPR.
Consider optimizing your messages for inbox providers such as Mail.ru, Live, and GMX, which are more common in certain countries.
Create smaller, more targeted audience segments to cater your messages to your recipient's specific interests and needs.
Test different visuals, messaging, send times, senders, etc., to compare results and see what resonates with your audiences.
Find the right number of messages to send each month while maintaining a high click-to-open rate.
Include a preference center so subscribers can determine how often they'd like to hear from you or choose what content they want to receive.
Periodically scrub your email list to remove inactive, invalid, bounced, and non-engaged email addresses.
Best practices for combining email and text marketing campaigns
1. Include an opt-in form in your text messages and email newsletter
Including an opt-in form in your text messages can help combine email and text marketing campaigns by allowing customers to opt-in for additional SMS marketing messages by texting a specific word or phrase from an email. This can help grow your SMS list from your current email subscriber base and warm up your subscribers for a lengthier email. It can also gather information by asking people to text you their first names. You can increase your open and engagement rates by making it easy for customers to opt-in.
2. Create targeted, relevant text messages
Creating highly targeted and relevant text messages for email and text marketing campaigns begins with selecting the appropriate message for your target audience. Start by segmenting your contacts into different groups based on age, location, interests, and other pertinent information. This will help you craft the message to fit their individual needs.
Once your customer segments are in place, use the 160-character limit to craft the perfect message. Keep it short and to the point, but ensure you include a call to action that encourages the reader to take the desired action.
In addition, focus on adding value to your messages. You can do this by including helpful tips, exclusive offers, or sneak peeks at upcoming products or services. This will give your contacts a reason to pay attention and keep them engaged with your brand.
Finally, use the right channels to reach your target audience. This could include SMS, MMS, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, or Google's Business Messages.
By following these steps, you can craft highly targeted, relevant text messages that will grab your customers' attention and encourage them to take action.
3. Include a call to action in your text messages
With SMS marketing, you can drive customers to act with a powerful call-to-action (CTA). By combining email and text marketing, you can create a CTA that encourages customers to check their emails for more information or click a link for promotion. This helps you reach a wider audience and drive more traffic to your website. Plus, with a 5.5x higher click-through rate than email, SMS messages will grab your customers' attention and drive them to take action.
4. Integrate your email marketing campaign and text marketing efforts
Integrating email and text marketing efforts is essential for companies aiming to create a comprehensive customer engagement strategy. To get started, follow these steps:
Find an SMS and email marketing platform that fits your business needs. Look for one that has features like list segmentation, analytics, and autoresponders.
Design professional email templates that represent your brand. Make sure to keep them mobile-friendly, as most people will read emails on their phones.
Incorporate SMS opt-ins into your email campaigns to allow customers to sign up for SMS notifications.
Use SMS to complement the gaps in your email marketing, such as sending reminders about events or campaigns.
Monitor feedback and analytics from SMS and email to better understand your customers and customize your approaches.
Focus on creating an omnichannel customer engagement strategy. This means sending consistent messages across all platforms and channels.
Measure the success of your campaigns by tracking open rates, click-through rates, and opt-ins.
By following these steps, you can easily create an effective, integrated email and text marketing strategy that helps your business create a comprehensive customer engagement strategy.
5. Leverage the email marketing platform capabilities
Leveraging an email marketing platform's capabilities can help combine email and text marketing campaigns by enabling companies to efficiently create, send and track email campaigns, automate emails with workflows and autoresponders, test emails, manage lists, track engagement, and more. This can help companies reach their target audience with the right message at the right time to boost sales and increase ROI.
Additionally, an email platform enables companies to access a mobile audience, utilize various styles, create long stories and messages, measure success, and use automation tools. An email marketing platform can also build brand awareness, initiate audience engagement, and create powerful B2B campaigns.
6. Use A/B testing to determine best practices
A/B testing is a great way to determine the best practices for combining email and text marketing campaigns. The key is to test different strategies and tactics to see which ones yield the highest engagement rates and ROI. Here is a step-by-step guide to using A/B testing for combining email and text marketing campaigns:
Collect the right data: Before starting any A/B testing, it's important to ensure you have the right data. Collect user data, such as IP address, date, time, form, URL, etc., at the point of collection to ensure you're targeting the right people.
Set up A/B tests: Create two versions of your email or text message, each with a different message, design, or call-to-action. Send each version to a segmented group of customers and track which message yields the highest engagement rates.
Analyze results: Once you have the results of your A/B tests, analyze the data to determine which message resonated with your customers. Make changes if necessary and repeat the process.
Monitor performance: Monitor your email and text message performance over time to ensure that your campaigns run as efficiently as possible.
Following these steps, you can use A/B testing to determine the best practices for combining email and text marketing campaigns. With the right data and testing strategies, you can find what works best for your customers and drive more engagement and ROI.
7. Use subscriber or customer data to personalize messages
Subscriber data can help personalize the email and text marketing campaigns in several ways.
You can test their communication preferences by making sure everyone can subscribe to both lists, then see what their interactions show. This allows you to identify their preferred communication channels and tailor your messages accordingly.
Segment customers based on open rates. For example, those who tend to click links on your text messages but rarely open your emails should get more frequent texts and fewer emails.
Use customer data from one channel to bolster the success of another channel. For example, suppose one customer shows an interest in baby-related text messages. In that case, you can use that to update their customer profile on your email list to ensure they're included in baby-related list segmentation.
Utilize real-time personalization with SMS marketing. With the help of technologies such as Twilio Engage, you can deliver hyper-targeted messages on the channel your customers prefer.
Make sure your messages are relevant and add value to the consumer's experience with your brand. Consider sending coupons, promotions, or sneak peeks to your subscribers as crowdpleasers they'll be happy to receive.
8. Leverage social media to expand your audience
Social media can be used to expand an email or text marketing audience in a few different ways. Firstly, leveraging social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to promote the same message across multiple channels can help you reach more customers.
This can be done by posting relevant content across all your social media channels, such as blog posts or product updates. This can encourage customers to sign up for your email list or text notifications for more information about your product or service.
Secondly, you can use social media to gather opt-ins for your text and email marketing campaigns. This can be done by setting up a sign-up form on your social media platforms so that customers can opt-in to receive text messages and emails about your business. By having the customers opt-in, you can ensure a higher quality list of contacts and avoid being marked as spam or put on a do-not-call list.
Thirdly, you can use social media to build hype and awareness around your upcoming events or campaigns by running targeted ads on these platforms. This can further engage your existing customers and draw attention to your campaigns.
Lastly, you can use social media to provide an exceptional customer experience by responding to customer inquiries on these platforms. This can help build customer trust and loyalty and make them more likely to opt-in to your email and text marketing campaigns.
By combining email and text marketing with social media, you can create a comprehensive omnichannel engagement strategy that helps you reach customers across multiple platforms. This can improve customer satisfaction with your brand and increase customer lifetime value.
9. Utilize email automation to save time
Email automation can help save time with text marketing by sending automated emails and SMS messages to customers based on their interactions with your brand. Automating follow-up emails and SMS messages can ensure that customers get the right message at the right time. Automation also helps ensure that customers are always aware of the different promotions and offers. Additionally, automation can help with segmentation and personalization, leading to more targeted and effective messaging.
Finally, email automation can also help reduce bounce rates by including opt-out information, ensuring that only customers interested in your emails get them.
10. Track metrics and measure results
Tracking metrics and measuring results can help combine email and text marketing campaigns by providing visibility into how each channel performs and impacts each other. With this data, brands can adjust their strategies to optimize cross-channel marketing efforts, driving better results and increasing their return on investment.
Utilizing tools such as Klaviyo, Square, and Zoho can provide insights into metrics such as SMS sent, link clicked, coupon redemption, and customer engagement, enabling brands to identify what works best and adjust their campaigns accordingly.
What is the best email and SMS marketing platform?
When choosing a platform for email and SMS marketing, businesses need to consider the platform's features, capabilities, and cost. To make the best decision, it's important to compare different email and SMS marketing platforms and evaluate each to determine the best fit for your business.
Before making a decision, it's important to compare and evaluate the different email and SMS marketing platforms to determine which one best fits the specific needs of your business.
Conclusion
Email and text marketing are two great ways to reach your customers. Integrating them allows you to create a powerful marketing strategy to help you reach your goals.
Slaterock Automation can help you with your email and SMS marketing. They can develop your campaign and make sure ROI is achieved. Contact Slaterock Automation today.
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