Does Text Message Marketing Fit into Your 2017 Strategy?

What “old school” digital tactics are you planning for your 2017 campaigns? By now everyone is back on board the email marketing train, but what about text message marketing?

Text message marketing became popular in the mid-2000’s, when everyone from Taylor Swift to the Portland Trailblazers began directly communicating with their fans via text message. Then-Senator Barack Obama took his campaign marketing to another level when he leveraged a text to announce Joe Biden as his pick for Vice President, laying the groundwork for text message-based fundraising throughout his campaign.

In case you missed the boat the first time, the way it works is that fans can “opt in” to a text message database by texting a keyword to a five-digit shortcode. Brands and celebrities began using text message marketing to build and directly communicate with their fan and customer bases at a higher rate than digital marketers had ever seen before.

So what happened? Why did text message marketing fade into the background? In the early 2010’s, The FCC modified its TCPA regulations to account for text message marketing, leading to what’s now known as a “double opt-in” for an individual to join a text message marketing list. Every brand, sports team, music group, and celebrity was forced to purge their lists and essentially start from scratch after the TCPA was put into effect. Many never regained their momentum, choosing to focus on up-and-coming social channels instead.

So why, ten years later, should brands get back into the text message marketing game?

For starters, text message marketing still enjoys a read rate more than double the average email campaign and social media post. That’s right folks- assuming that you’re seeing a generous 5% organic reach on social media and 40% email open rate, text message marketing still comes out ahead by more than a two-to-one margin in the battle for customers’ eye balls. The average text message is read over 99% of the time!

How is that possible? Largely because no one can stand to have that alert symbol lit up on their phone’s home screen. That means that pretty much every message a brand sends is at least being glanced at by each and every intended recipient- a figure that no other platform can come close to matching.

Naysayers may point to the double opt-in as a reason to forgo text message list development. But even with a double-opt in, text message marketing is still one of the best ways to build up your customer database:

No marketer in their right mind would try to directly build their email database via television or radio advertising campaigns. Enter text message marketing. By leveraging a “text to win” campaign, marketers can incentivize their audience to text in and join their contact list in return for the chance to win a prize.

Pro-Tip: Studies have shown that offering many smaller prizes drives higher ROI for marketers than one single large prize. For example- give away ten $100 gift cards instead of one $1,000 gift card in order to get more entries.

Contests aren’t the only way to build a brand’s text message marketing list. Marketing leaders can also offer an instant coupon, either by promo code or bit.ly link, via text message. This is a great way to drive timely sales to your brick-and-mortar location, like offering a lunchtime special in a crowded business district.

For easy campaign tracking, a unique bit.ly short code can be used to track site traffic from each offer. Bit.ly is great for immediate reporting purposes and, in an era where everyone has a smartphone, tapping the shortcode link to claim an offer has never been easier.

Has your brand jumped back on the text message marketing bandwagon? If not, or if you’re questioning the results of your brand’s text message marketing campaigns, contact Fidelitas to learn more about how you can optimize your text message marketing for 2017.