With over a third of people checking their phones at least 50 times per day it is clear that SMS is a powerful marketing tool but it is important to look at the best practices to set up SMS marketing before jumping in. In this blog, we are going to take a look at the advantages, disadvantages, and some other helpful hints when it comes to integrating SMS into your Dynamics 365 CRM.
What is SMS marketing
SMS marketing uses text messages to communicate offers, product update sales, etc to your customers. It is essentially a direct line to your customer base because they have given their permission for your brand to directly contact them. Because of this, it is usually one of the higher-performing marketing methods when it comes to open rate and click-through rate.
What are the benefits of SMS marketing?
There are many benefits to using SMS to communicate with your customers including:
SMS marketing drives consumer engagement: SMS campaigns drive an average click-through rate of 36%, 6 to 8 times that of email (4.5%)
SMS is instant: Text tends to get our attention quickly.
Creates a more personal connection: SMS is how we get to communicate with family and friends therefore when we receive a text from a brand, we may feel that this is a more personalised approach than an email.
Improved Customer Experience: Text messages can provide timely updates such as order confirmation, reminders, and shipping notifications, boosting customer experience.
What are the main types of SMS marketing?
Almost 40% of businesses are now implementing SMS marketing into their marketing and communications strategy. (Adam Connell, 2024).
Below are the main types of messaging being used in SMS marketing campaigns:
Promotional: Promotional SMS marketing are messages you send to increase sales and promote a new product. These can either be stand-alone campaigns or set up to be triggered by the user from an action on your website such as abandoned carts.
Transactional: Transactional SMS are messages that follow a purchase. They usually keep the user updated on the status of their order, such as shipping updates or delivery confirmations. The main goal for this type of messaging is to keep customers informed and generally increase customer satisfaction.
Conversational: Although many SMS messages are one-sided, there are options to start conversations with customers via SMS. Users may respond to specific words as prompts. These can be used to get quick customer feedback.
Best Practices
Frequency: Nobody wants to be bombarded by messages from a brand. By knowing your audience and also having clear goals you can build a SMS marketing schedule that will be based on informative messaging to obtain business goals.
Day Time Hours: Most people do not mind receiving a message during daytime hours (8am - 8pm) but sending text messages when outside these hours should be avoided. Also always check to see if your SMS provider can provide staggered sending so that if you are sending a message to someone outside of your timezone they will only receive it at an appropriate time in their timezone.
Unsubscribe: Similar to emails it is always important that users can easily unsubscribe from your message alerts, so make sure to include this in each message. This will help to build trust with your brand, as users know they have the option to stop messages should they wish to.
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