SMS Marketing Playbook — Everything You Need To Know About Text Message Automation

Now that you know what SMS marketing is, how it works, its benefits, challenges, and use cases, let’s get to know how to use it to your advantage:

1. Define The Goals To Achieve With SMS Marketing

Like any other marketing strategy, define the goals you want to achieve with your SMS marketing. There are endless possibilities with SMS marketing, and you can easily get overwhelmed by it.

It’s taken that many businesses want to get into this mobile marketing channel, but they haven’t determined the ‘Why’, ‘What’, and ‘How’ of their SMS marketing campaigns.

Define at least one main goal to achieve, for example, increasing engagement for your real estate, solar energy, or other business industry.

Moreover, you can use the SMART goal creation template popularly used by the HubSpot team to create goals. This template allows you to set a goal that is specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound. E.g., generating 2X more sales from SMS marketing in the next quarter.

It’s specific, measurable, relevant, and achievable within a specified time frame. By tailoring your SMS text messaging, you can easily achieve any SMART goal for your business.

2. Find a Great SMS Automation Service Provider

After creating goals that benefit your business, the next thing you want to do is find the right SMS automation service provider. Prioritize partnering with a cost-effective SMS tool that offers great customer support, has industry-leading deliverability, and makes it easy for you to launch your text message campaigns.

Further, ensure that the automated texting tool of your choice allows you to scale your SMS marketing efforts as and when required. Additionally, when selecting a vendor, evaluate complementary integrations, tools for growth, and the personalization level they offer.

It should offer real-time two-way communication, and calling functionality for urgent needs to reach out to customers.

Textdrip is one such SMS automation tool that helps you reach the right customers at the right time with the right message.

3. Launch Your First SMS Automation Campaign

Now that you’ve chosen your SMS automation tool, it’s time to complete your 10DLC Campaign Registry. Once successfully registered, you can start sending text messages to your subscribers.

You can even set up automation to welcome new users, which is triggered by the signup event. Further, send them a unique discount code or any other incentive as promised at the time of signing up.

After signing up, it’s essential to auto-send the first text message instantly as your brand or product is still fresh in their minds. Similar to automated emails, when a new subscriber joins, the event should trigger an automated follow-up or welcome SMS.

Since the SMS is all about short-form content, your text should pack as much value as possible.

While many may unsubscribe immediately after they’ve redeemed the discount or other incentives, your job is to inform them that they’ll keep getting discounts or other benefits if they remain subscribed.

This allows you to launch your SMS drip automation campaign to turn your leads into paying customers through the most effective channel.

4. Test, Text, And Implement

Texting isn’t rocket science, however, it requires a sophisticated approach and thorough testing. For instance, experiment with sending a one-off campaign to only a group of subscribers and see how they react before you go mass messaging everyone.

Additionally, differentiate your text message content from email, promoting the same product or service. Analyze how your SMS campaigns perform and based on the same include SMS in your overall marketing strategy. This helps you create an omnichannel experience.

Lastly, review your results and metrics to comprehend insights about what you’re doing right or wrong with your SMS marketing. This helps you test, improve, and implement tailored text messaging to identify the best SMS strategy that brings fruitful results.

While most customers prefer a text message-based approach for brands to reach out to them, there are several strategies and best practices that can make or break your SMS marketing. Let’s find out what they are:

SMS Marketing Strategies to Give a Try

There are diverse potential use cases of SMS marketing where you can employ a strategic approach to generate high engagement and responses. Here are some strategies that you want to try out:

1. Running Automated Drip Campaigns

Drip campaigns are just another form of automated marketing where text-based messages are sent based on several factors such as

• Duration between two messages

• User actions that trigger the next message.

It’s a time-released set of automated communications sent from your brand to users when they complete a specific action or after a certain duration. They are designed to pique the users’ interest and compel them to take action or engage with your brand.

In a drip campaign, you can set up which marketing message to send next and to whom based on the previous reaction. For instance, after sending an initial message asking for the type of insurance customers want to buy, you wait for the reply.

If users don’t respond, the SMS marketing platform will send the next message after a duration of 5, 10, 15, or X minutes/hours. Most tools like Textdrip allow you to customize this duration between two successive messages.

Through drip campaigns, you can automate your SMS marketing and send promotional messages to opted-in customers.

2. Promotional Campaigns

Promotional campaigns involve sending coupons, exclusive deals, new product launches, flash sales, and others that prompt purchases or drive urgency. Through this strategy, you can communicate your hot new product launches, especially if it’s a product that sells out fast.

Additionally, it helps drive more traffic to your website and compels them to make quick purchases. With punchy text alerts, you can nudge customers who have already purchased from you to return to your site and buy again.

3. Transactional Messaging

Transactional messaging involves sending texts such as order confirmations, payment confirmations, shipping, delivery, and others. These messages are triggered when a specific task is completed such as when users make a purchase, an order is shipped, or when an order is delivered.

4. Content Sharing Messaging

Creating content may be hard but sharing it isn’t. With an SMS channel at your disposal, you can instantly share content, provide advice, or share tips.

For instance, if you’re an expert in the real estate industry, you can share real estate purchase guides for your city/country with your customers. If you’re an expert in the healthcare insurance field, you can share advice or tips for choosing the best health insurance plan.

This allows you to leverage your knowledge to provide users with a unique perspective every once in a while.

5. Polls, Surveys, and Review Collection Texting

Polls and surveys allow you to collect responses and feedback from your customers. They are great to learn more about what your customers think of your brand or product. Since SMSs have a high response and engagement rate, this strategy allows you to send review requests quickly.

After customers have made a purchase, send them an SMS with a survey link to leave a review on Google, Trustpilot, or other platforms.

SMS Marketing: 8 Best Practices to Follow for Higher Engagement Rate

The below-listed best practices allow you to simplify SMS marketing. Let’s see what they are:

1. Ensure You Send SMS To Opted-In Contacts

Even if customers have given their contact details willingly, you can’t explicitly begin sending messages to their numbers without their express consent. Sending SMS texts to people without their prior permission is not legal and can attract hefty fines.

So, ensure that your contacts have opted-in to receive text-based messages from your brand. Since SMS texts are a direct line of communication, you want to ask permission before you plan your SMS marketing strategy.

You can collect user opt-ins through two methods: creating a specialized landing page or adding a checkbox on your contact form. A landing page is where users can sign up to receive SMS text messages in return for some incentive or discount.

You can also add a checkbox on any of your contact forms or at the checkout page where users can opt-in for SMS marketing. After they have opted in, send a Thank You/Welcome message while also asking them to confirm their subscription with ‘Yes’ or ‘No.’

If they don’t respond, it’s a cue that they are not interested in receiving your text. And if they respond with ‘No,’ remove them from your SMS marketing campaign. The ones who respond with ‘Yes’ really want to receive texts about promotions and offers from your brand.

Also, it’s essential to let customers know what they can expect from your brand and how often.

2. Keep Your SMS Short and To The Point

The full form of SMS is self-explanatory i.e. it should be short and concise. It’s not a channel where you write an entire article or eBook as you do in email. Text messages have a character limit, which gives you a limited amount of space to grab users’ attention.

If you are sending promotional messages, consider starting with phrases like “Special Offer”, “Just for You”, or others.

Starting your messages with compelling phrases will pique the interest of the recipient and encourage them to read further.

Also, an SMS is 160 characters long, so you want to get to the point quickly and avoid including unnecessary facts. In most cases, you can structure your message using the following framework:

• Customer name

• Company name

• Offer or core message

• CTA

• Opt-out option

Additionally, you can include a link if you want to provide more information and redirect users to your website or the specific offer page.

3. Time The Delivery Of Your SMS

Timing your marketing messages is pivotal for the success of any marketing campaign and the SMS channel is no exception. It’s critical to choose the right time for sending your messages to users so that they can open and interact with them instantly.

You don’t want to send text messages in the middle of the night when customers are sound asleep and get disturbed by the notification from you. Also, avoid sending SMSs during holidays, early in the morning, or after dinner time.

Consider choosing a timeframe your users are actively working, or else strictly follow business hours for texting. Also, pay attention to users’ time zones and schedule sending your texts accordingly by choosing an appropriate time.

4. Personalize the Message & Provide Value

Another best practice is to keep your brand tone consistent across all the messages you send and personalize them whenever possible. For instance, begin your SMS by addressing users with their names and tailor the message by including things that interest them.

Personalized texting gets more attention from your customers and compels them to take action. According to a Salesforce report, 66% of customers want brands to understand their unique needs and 52% expect brands to always send personalized offers & messages.

However, personalization would only work to a certain extent because users expect those messages to be worth their while.

Get creative and keep things interesting by sending personalized messages that convey the value of your brand or product.

For example, send discount offers, tips on how to use your product, or an informative piece of content. Regardless of what you communicate with your customers, make sure the message is relevant and personalized and improves customers’ experience.

By providing useful information, you create a level of anticipation and surprise that adds value without feeling intrusive.

5. Include CTA

CTA or Call-to-Action is used to urge customers to take action and move ahead in your SMS marketing funnel. Based on what you want them to do, define what your CTA is going to be.

Do you want them to visit your website? Or book an appointment? Or redeem the offer you sent?

Regardless of what the next step in your funnel is, adding a strong call to action will encourage recipients to go through with it. Including an effective CTA in your SMS is simple by using the following examples:

• Sign up now!

• Redeem Now!

• Book Appointment Now!

• Complete this survey & get X% off!

• Checkout using: TEXTDP20 code

6. Use SMS Marketing To Supplement Your Overall Digital Marketing

Incorporating SMS marketing into your digital marketing can help you build a strong brand, sell with a story, have meaningful conversations, and generate demand.

The beauty of digital marketing is that you can utilize so many channels to interact and engage with customers.

Using all the different digital channels, you can tie everything together to create a harmonious marketing ecosystem that enables you to generate leads at scale. SMS marketing is one such channel that can supplement your other marketing efforts.

You can use it effectively to communicate urgent and time-sensitive information with your clients.

7. Don’t Go Overboard With Sending Too Many SMS

While SMS marketing may seem a lucrative option, you don’t want to bombard users by sending too many texts.

It may be tempting to use SMS to send every piece of information but you don’t want to abuse the power of SMS marketing.

Unlike social media advertisements or billboards, consumers here have the choice to opt-out. And they’ll do so if they feel you are going overboard with sending too many SMS too frequently.

Instead, schedule drip SMSs that go out after a certain interval. Moreover, if you don’t have anything important to offer or urgent to ask, refrain from sending a message at all.

8. Provide a Way Out

Similar to how sending SMS without prior consent is illegal, not providing a way out to unsubscribe from your SMS marketing list is also illegal. There should always be an option for users to unsubscribe from receiving messages from your brand.

You can simply add “Reply STOP to unsubscribe” or a custom opt-out line of your choice at the end of each text. This gives customers a chance to opt out of receiving messages from your brand. It’s also important for you as your contact list will get filtered and only people who are interested in your product or service will keep getting your messages.

Since people with no interest leave, it’ll improve your overall success rate by targeting only the people who are still interested. Also, it’ll save time and money you may spend on nurturing uninterested people and allow you to focus on the interested ones.

List building and growing your subscriber base is the next major thing in your SMS marketing automation. However, just building a list is not enough. You may need to distribute your contacts into different groups and send them relevant offers with better personalization.

Doing so helps you come up with targeted campaigns that you can automate to generate maximum profits. But the road to profitability starts with list building, and here’s how you can do so:

Methods to Increase SMS Subscriber Base

Since you’ve reached here, we take it that you have found the right SMS automation solution that perfectly fits your needs. Now, it’s time to grow your subscriber base using the tactics that you already know, plus, implement some from the below list:

1. Offer Signup Incentive

This method involves creating a dedicated landing page to collect user opt-ins and offer discounts in return. Since people are more reluctant to share their phone numbers, you can sweeten the deal by giving them an explicit discount once they opt in.

Remember that, even if you already have hundreds of contacts, you can’t send them a single message until they opt-in to receive messages from you.

A landing page can help you build a strong contact list with the express consent of subscribers to receive promotional messages in return for a little incentive.

2. Create a Form or Redirect Users to the Landing Page from the Website

Apart from a landing page, you can integrate a form on your website or redirect users to the landing page from your website or email flow.

Importantly, pay attention to your signup keywords and use phrases such as “Join us to receive best deals and discounts through SMS.” Regardless of what you write, make sure that it expresses clearly what people are getting into.

3. Increase Subscribers with Email Marketing

Turning your email subscribers into SMS subscribers is another great way to build and grow your list. Email subscribers are your greatest assets as they are already interested in your offerings.

Thus, it’d be easy for you to turn them into your SMS subscribers by offering them a strong incentive. The key here is to promote exclusivity through SMS marketing and make your SMS list feel special.

4. Add SMS Opt-In Field at the Checkout

This is the simplest way and should work like a breeze. While customers are completing checkout, you can add a field to collect their phone number and a check box highlighting that they are opt-in to receive promotional texts.

So, optimize your checkout process to increase the SMS subscriber list and ensure that it’s compliant with industry norms.

5. Invite SMS Opt-ins from Social Media

Another best way to grow your SMS opt-in rate is to cross-promote and inform your social media followers of the benefits of subscribing to your SMS marketing. Explain that they now have a direct communication line with your brand and can easily get in touch with you for almost anything.

Also, promote the launch of your SMS marketing campaigns on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc., and provide a link to the landing page where followers can subscribe.

List Distribution & Management

Distribution & segmentation of your contact list is as important as building a sizable list for running a tailored SMS campaign that maximizes your ROI. Doing so ensures that you are not overwhelming your subscribers with repeated messages that are irrelevant to them.

Moreover, it also helps reduce the costs of sending text messages to contacts that are unlikely to open and engage with your texts. Through SMS marketing software like Textdrip, you can manage your contacts, distribute them through Bucket, and assign them different drip campaigns.

Here are some criteria to consider when distributing your list:

• Location of the audiences

• Stage of the funnel and expressed interest in the product or service

• Customer lifetime value

• Response to previous messages

• Segmentation based on loyalty

• Customer personas

• Profession of the target audience

List distribution is an ongoing process where you need to segment new subscribers based on the criteria listed above. The individual segmented list is not exclusive and may overlap with others and can be a part of multiple SMS campaigns.

The next step after list building and segmentation is to implement automation and determine what types of text messages you can send. SMS automation software empowers you to harness automation tools for configuring your campaigns.

Let’s get to know how to implement automation for your SMS campaigns

Steps to Implement SMS Automation

Automation takes away the hours of hard work of sitting at a desk writing and sending messages manually to each recipient. With tools like Textdrip, you can easily implement text message automation and create a tailored campaign in no time.

Here’s a general step-by-step process to implement text message automation:

1. Sign Up on the Platform

While there are several text message automation tools available in the market, Textdrip is one of the most cost-effective automation tools to get started with. Just after the signup, you can avail 1-month risk-free trial of Textdrip along with the 1000 complimentary credits to experience the magic of automation.

Textdrip is an innovative cloud-based platform that empowers you to effortlessly automate SMS marketing campaigns while delivering personalized text messages. Once you feel satisfied with the functionality, you can purchase more credits and start sending messages to your customers.

2. Import Your List of Contacts

To begin with automated campaigns, you’ll need to import a list of contacts that have subscribed to receive your messages. There’s a built-in feature from which you can upload and import your opted-in contacts and add them to your automated workflow.

Once uploaded, ensure that you send the right messages to the right people by segmenting your list of contacts appropriately. You can add them to your existing drip campaigns or create a new one to better target them for higher response and conversion opportunities.

3. Create Your Campaigns

The core strength of Textdrip is drip campaigning, which includes setting up multiple short messages that are sent out at specific intervals to a mass audience at once.

Configuring drip campaigns is easy. Define your flow of drip campaigns by adding as many text blocks as needed and setting intervals between two successive messages. Now, create your messages by using merge fields to personalize them for each recipient.

4. Send Your Automated Text Messages

Once you’ve done all the preparations, it’s time to schedule and run your automated drip campaigns. Textdrip also allows you to schedule text messages that are sent automatically to individual users.

Moreover, you can also set up auto-replies for specific cases such as when you are on vacation or your account will be inactive for too long.

Types of Text Messages You Can Send On Automate

Now that you understand how text message automation works and how to implement it using Textdrip, let’s jump to the types of text messages you can send on automate:

1. Welcome Texts

Similar to welcome emails, welcome SMS can seem a nice first message when a customer opts in to your SMS marketing program. Also, if you’ve offered some form of incentive to compel users to sign up for SMS, welcome texts are perfect for the same.

You can send them a welcome text such as below,

“Welcome to [company name]’s community. Use the [discount code] to get [offer] for your next order with us. Visit – [link]. Reply STOP to opt-out.”

2. Product Announcements

Another example of text message marketing is to announce new product arrivals to spread awareness among your subscribers. Sending such kinds of announcements is perfect to drive traffic and create buzz for your new products.

However, you want to be careful and send such announcements sparingly to not spam your customers. Here’s an example text message you can send:

“Just Arrived! Add [product name] to your collection to take it to the next level. Buy now from – [product link] until the stock lasts. Reply STOP to opt-out.”

3. Schedule Appointments

Businesses belonging to various industries such as real estate, insurance, and others can use automated SMS workflows to ask customers about their preferences and book appointments.

The automated workflow can commence by asking subscribers about their interests, then follow up with providing a few options, and end with scheduling an appointment.

Here’s an example text message to send:

“Hey [first name], thanks for showing interest in our [property/insurance plans]. Is it a good time to visit tomorrow at 3:30 PM? Reply YES to confirm or STOP to opt out.”

4. Discount & Sales Messages

Another text message type that you can automate is sending discounts, promo codes, and sale alerts in bulk to your customers. Alerts like Flash Sales, Seasonal Sales, and other time-sensitive deals are great ways to engage your customers.

Here’s a sample message you can send:

“Hey [first name], exclusive deal just for you! Claim your deal in the next 24 hours before it’s too late. Use [promo code] to get X% off at checkout. Visit – [link]. Reply STOP to unsubscribe.”

5. Personalized Offers

Personalized offers for events such as birthdays or anniversaries show that your customers are more important to you than numbers. Scour your customer data for birthdays and create a campaign to offer them personalized rewards to celebrate their birthday.

Similarly, you can reward customers who have been with you for over 1 year or so and send them a special offer to celebrate the anniversary. Such messages tend to trigger emotional responses that impact positively on your sales.

Here’s a sample of the message you can send:

“Happy Birthday [first name]! We, at [company name], wish the world and want you to celebrate the day with a surprise gift from us. Visit – [link] and redeem the [code].”

6. MMS Messages

MMS messages is where you can attach multimedia like images, GIFs, and others in your SMS text messages. It gives you an enhanced character limit and visual capability to WOW your customers.

Textdrip SMS platform also allows you to attach images, GIFs, emojis, etc. to their messages. You can automate MMS messages the same way you automate SMS messages in Textdrip.

The right SMS marketing software will streamline text messaging marketing and automation for your business. As explained, SMS marketing holds ground for the benefits it offers against the challenges it poses.

However, the key thing for any business that wants to leverage the power of SMS to boost its promotions and sales generation program is to consider the pricing and costs. Because everything boils down to one thing: how much will it cost for your business to run SMS marketing campaigns?

Well, the answer to the same will vary depending on the software you choose. For instance, Textdrip is the most cost-effective SMS marketing software out there in the market compared to others. Here’s how the pricing of Textdrip works:

Textdrip Pricing & Costs

Textdrip offers simple and the most competitive SMS marketing pricing, making it easy for all businesses to get started with SMS automation. With a base subscription price of $34.99 per month and the flexibility to purchase credits for required messages to send with pay-as-you-go.

This enables you to scale or minimize your efforts as required. Further, Textdrip adorns you with the functionality to purchase multiple numbers or add your team of sales heroes with multi-profile to distribute your workload and assign different roles to each number or user profile.

Our text messaging system is based on a credit system and each credit is worth $0.012, meaning sending 1000 SMS will only cost you $12. You can even purchase more credits or buy gift certificates at a 20% discount and redeem the same.

The cherry on top is you can avail Upto 30 Days risk-free trial of Textdrip along with Upto 2500 complimentary credits. Book a demo now or start free with Textdrip today to experience the magic yourself.

Note: Pricing is for per outbound segment, which should be 160 characters or less for a single segment and 153 characters or less for multiple segments.

With each credit, you can send 1 SMS to 1 sender. If your SMS goes beyond 160 characters, you’ll be charged additional credits. Similarly, image attachments will consume 5 credits per message per sender.

Thus, the overall cost of using the Textdrip platform after the trial period will be $19.99 per month + the amount to purchase credits you need to run your SMS campaigns.

Competitor Pricing & Costs

After analyzing the pricing and cost structure of competitors, we’ve found that most of them offer tiered plans with daily or monthly limits for sending messages. For instance, most competitors offer plans based on how many messages you want to send in a month, and pricing for them varies greatly.

So, if you plan to send 500 messages this month and your partner wants to send 2000 messages, you both will pay different amounts. Also, if you change your plan next month to 1000 to 2000 messages, you’ll be charged differently. Textdrip has no such disparity in pricing plans.

Moreover, with premium plans, your effective price for purchasing message credits reduces. This also means that if you choose a plan with a 500 monthly message limit, you’ll pay $0.055 for one credit against the $0.040 for the 2000 monthly message plan.

Now imagine the cost it would amount to if you were to send 50,000 texts in a month. For this case, you’d have to pay approximately $900 to $1200+ per month plus additional credit purchase charges.

Contrary to this, Textdrip seems way more affordable at just $19.99 with no monthly limit for sending SMSs. Though there isn’t a daily limit for sending messages, Textdrip recommends keeping it to 2000 a day to avoid carriers flagging your number as spam.

Also, we’ve compared different SMS marketing pricing strategies to help you choose the most cost-effective solution.

Overall, Textdrip is the most affordable with its competitive prices compared to the majority of market-leading SMS software providers. Also, recently Textdrip has won the 2023 Rising Star Award from Finances Online with a 98% user satisfaction score.