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5 tips for succesful SMS Marketing.

In a world where customers are bored with email marketing and the effectiveness of social media is questionable, you stand a far higher chance of gaining the attention of customers when using SMS marketing, which is getting more popular than ever. There is something about SMS marketing that is simple, yet highly effective in forging close relationships with your customers.

Here are 5 key ways to use SMS marketing for your business and how to get the most out of your clients:-

1. ‘Always on’ communication

On average a smart phone is checked around 150 times a day and 98% of text messages are opened. So Unlike emails and social media, which are seldom checked on a frequent basis, if at all, SMS messages get through every time, all the time. A text message will be the first thing that is seen on the home screen as soon as the phone is picked up. No matter what time of the day it is, a short message with perhaps a call to action could be the key to another sale. Over time, you will learn when is the best time to send texts, determined of course by response rates.

2. You know your audience is Interested

A great feature of SMS marketing is that your data base will comprise of customers that have opted in to your scheme, they have possibly used your service in the past and want to hear from you. They know and trust you and welcome the chance to find out what you are prepared to offer. Marketing in this way is highly effective and generates optimum response rates. Let them know you love them by proactively putting offers in front of them, saving the bother of looking on-line and shopping around for the best deal.

3. Don’t be too intrusive

If you bombard your customers with text messages, they will most likely opt out if it becomes too intrusive. You should be delighted that your customer has a desire to hear from you from time to time, use this privilege wisely. Promote your business and the most important deals that you don’t want them to miss out on, do not sent frivolous or irrelevant information.

4. Use this powerful tool sparingly

No matter how good your restaurant is, or relaxing the beauty therapy you offer, in normal circumstances customers are unlikely to want to visit you more than once a week. No one wants to be bombarded and texts will lose value and appeal if you send too many, too often. Limit the amount you send to a maximum of four in a 30 day period and decide which texts are suitable for specific clients. It is important that the platform you use gives you this flexibility.

5. Careful what you say

Wording is incredibly important. Text messages are typically read as soon as they are received and this may not always be an appropriate moment, so be brief, clear and don’t waffle. Try to avoid using percentages when offering discount. Sad as it is, a lot of people are unable to work out how much they are getting off in real terms. This is especially true in the Restaurant sector when the customer does not know how much a meal would cost, so a percentage does not relate to a value. A free glass of wine or free dessert will probably cost you less, but be far more appealing to your customer.

For more information on SMS Marketing, text TMD and your first name to 60163 or email info@textmydeal.co.uk or call 0330 122 2876

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Top Strategies in SMS Marketing for Restaurants

‘Get a free starter with your meal today.’ A free bottle of house wine with your meal’.

Trying to get hungry customers to your restaurant? Consider SMS text marketing. Text offers such as these can bring in new or repeat business with every message.

If done right, it can be extremely effective. Here is a quick rundown of the top strategies for restaurants to attract more business.

Provide Opt-in Incentives

To increase the number of subscribers for your campaign, consider providing opt-in incentives, such as a discount or free giveaway. Users are more likely to sign up for your text messages if there is an instant reward for doing so.

Use Time-Sensitive Offers

If you want to improve the response from your campaign, why not reach out to your subscribers when they are most likely to be hungry? Sending a last-minute discount offer around lunch or dinner time will surely appeal to subscribers. However, you should never send text messages after 9 pm!

Make it an SMS Sweepstakes

Make it more exciting for your subscribers with a text-to-win campaign or SMS sweepstakes. Offer a prize for entry to your program and you’ll see an increase in the number of subscribers who participate.

Ask Customers about Their Preferences

As you use text message marketing to promote your restaurant, ask your customers about their preferences and then give them what they want. Whether it’s discount offers or more frequent texts or reminders about upcoming promotions, let your customers drive your campaign instead of simply guessing.

Want to learn more about setting up your own SMS marketing campaign? Our software can do all of the above. Contact us or call 0330 122 2876, or email info@textmydeal.co.uk, or text TMD to 60163 and add your first name.

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The Reinvention of SMS marketing.

As smartphones became connected to email and social media sites, many thought that SMS would soon become obsolete. So many marketers began to focus their efforts on reaching their mobile customers via Facebook, Twitter and email. There are, however, built-in limitations and not so obvious flaws with these platforms.

Facebook and Twitter posts can easily become lost in users’ feeds. The average open rate for emails is usually between 20 percent and 25 percent. By contrast, 98 percent of text messages are read within minutes of receipt. SMS is simply the most reliable way to engage with audiences. People are far more responsive to text messages than to any other type of platform.

While there are undeniable benefits to social media marketing, businesses are starting to realise that just amassing likes and followers is no guarantee of success, especially as these can easily be manipulated. For example, Facebook and YouTube likes, Twitter followers and retweets can all be purchased. Even genuine engagement on social media is often fleeting, with people liking a page and then forgetting about it.

SMS, on the other hand, provides businesses with a more reliable way to engage with customers who have opted-in to receiving messages. Text messages are direct and do not get lost on users’ social media feeds or overflowing inboxes.

This is why once more, businesses are turning to SMS for direct engagement.

For more information on SMS Marketing, text TMD and your first name to 60163 or email info@textmydeal.co.uk or call 0330 122 2876

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Do You Think Advertising On Social Media Is Free?

Many businesses have convinced themselves that they could advertise to their target audience through social media without paying. A common argument has often been “why should I pay for text messages or app development when I can do all that on Facebook or Twitter for free?”

But it is not free really.

Resources required to maintain social media relationships come at a cost. Whether that resource is in-house, or a third party, it will require a budget. In fact, to truly engage with customers on any social media platform requires real financial investment. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram are constantly changing the way businesses can utilise their platforms to directly reach their own customers. To keep up with these changes while maintaining a presence and getting the most out of it, businesses need to invest in resources to handle this.

But here are some recent ‘Gallup’ survey statistics that will make you think: –

94% of consumers who use Facebook, Twitter and other social networking channels do so only to connect with family and friends.

62% of respondents said the influence of social media on their buying had no impact at all. In the retail sector 56% of shoppers base their purchasing decisions on in-store displays and that 7% base their decisions on social media content.

Facebook will tell you a post on your page will reach on average about 16% of your customers organically. Let’s do the sums; If you have 5,000 ‘likes’ may get your message in front of 800 people. A study carried out by social analytics and reporting company Locowise goes even further stating that the more ‘Likes’ your page has, the less organic reach you will receive. Pages with over 50,000 fans can expect less than 10 percent reach.

If a 10% reach is what you are aiming for, then fine. But what if you could reach 100% of your customers, all 5000 of them. Now surely that would be a strategy worth considering.

Facebook posts are very much a moving target; in normal circumstances you miss most of them! The same applies to twitter because those feeds are constantly updating. But what about incoming text messages? Generally you read them on average within 5 seconds of hearing the text alert. The same applies to your customers. With SMS marketing you can reach 100% of your customer in seconds.

So let’s address the cost argument again. We can now start thinking that social media costs pretty much the same as sending SMS messages. The only difference is that one option is giving you a reach of 10% of your potential audience, while the other option puts you in front of 100%!

For more information on SMS Marketing, text TMD and your first name to 60163 or email info@textmydeal.co.uk or call 0330 122 2876

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Do You Know Your Open Rate?.

‘Opened’ rate is calculated by taking into account all the emails that are accepted and read by the recipient. Generally speaking, a good range of ‘Open’ rate is between 15% and 25% for marketing emails. Each sector’s open rates are different. Weaker opening rates (less than 18%) were observed in e-commerce, recruitment, transportation and music*.

Working on these figures, 75 – 85% of the people you are targeting or about to target won’t bother to read your message. That’s a lot of time, effort and expense put into sending a marketing campaign that a lot of people simply won’t read!

What if you sent a text message instead? You may be surprised to learn that 98% of text messages are read** or opened. Most are read within 5 seconds of being received. If you doubt this, then take a moment to look at your phone and see if you have any unread SMS messages.

SMS messages have stood the test of time and continue to do so. All handsets can receive them. There’s no need to download software or run updates. It’s a standard feature on every phone of every potential or existing customer of yours.

We run a wonderfully unique ‘opt in’ marketing tool for our clients. Their own customers have chosen to receive offers and deals, or just news and updates from them. This is not an intrusive form of marketing and our records show on average less than 0.25% of our clients customers choose to opt out.

It doesn’t matter if you’re sending out campaigns for an event or forthcoming deal, or targeting in real time visitors on your premises. With SMS you can be guaranteed that messages sent get received, opened and read.

So before you sign off the artwork and wording on that next HTML email, contact us.

*Mail Jet **Frost & Sullivan For more information on SMS Marketing, text TMD and your first name to 60163 or email info@textmydeal.co.uk or call 0330 122 2876

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On average people pick up their Smartphone 221 times a day !

Yes you read that right! People carry out 221 tasks per day on their smartphones, compared to just 140 on a desktop or laptop.

That’s just one of the statistics revealed by a recent survey of 2,000 UK smartphone owners. *

And not only do we take to our phones to carry out more than 200 tasks a day, but we start early too!

Research found that the average user reaches for their phone before they’ve even gotten out of bed, checking the weather, picking up emails and seeing if they’ve missed anything on social media before they think about breakfast.

And they’re on them late, with the average time at which people last check their phones in a day being 11:21pm.

A grand total of three hours and 16 minutes of time spent using phones over the course of any given day.

Now you are aware of this, now you know how often your customers are looking at their phone, shouldn’t you be sending them an SMS message?

*Tecmark

For more information on SMS Marketing, text TMD and your first name to 60163 or email info@textmydeal.co.uk or call 0330 122 2876