Campaign checklist for the planning of a SMS campaign

Many of the lessons learnt by direct marketers are transferable to SMS marketing. The most significant of these is to ensure you measure the campaign against your original objectives to ensure it is delivering a real ROI. Losing focus of this when using a new medium results in inconclusive appraisals of the suitability of the medium.

However, following Adestra’s work with a number of clients, we’ve devised a simple campaign checklist to help you plan your SMS marketing program

Database acquisition

Taking lessons from email, good opt-in and simple opt-out practices are essential when using the mobile channel. Many companies use a simple “reply to this message with UNSUBSCRIBE to end the alerts”. If you use this technique, it is imperative that your organization reacts to these requests as soon as you receive them – your contact has paid to send you that message.

Not respecting their wishes will incur them further expense, inconvenience and damage their perception of your brand.

Message design and the offer

Using SMS marketing means your message needs to be contained within 160 characters. It can include links, but to increase recognition labelling your message with a sender ID enables you to populate your recipient’s inbox with your name within the “from” field. This is set when using Adestra’s broadcast system.

When choosing the right offer, the rules are similar to other media – select the right offer to the right people. However, the difference is the mobile marketers need to be able to communicate a convincing message with an appropriate call to action within 160 characters.

Messages need to be concise and snappy, offers need to be easily explained

Analyse and report

Just like Adestra’s fax marketing services, you receive detailed reporting on number of messages sent, delivered and failed to provide essential feedback on the hygiene level of your database.

By using web tools you can also track click throughs when they click through to an Adestra micro-site allowing you to ‘close the loop’ and understand who responds to your offers for ROI.

New targeting paradigm

As a mobile channel, SMS marketing is delivered almost as soon as it is sent, and interrupts the recipient. This means if a B2B marketer broadcasts a campaign on Saturday at 3pm through email, although delivered the recipient won’t read it until they return to the office the next week.

With SMS, the message will be delivered immediately and there is a much higher chance of it being read immediately. A brand the interrupts the recipient’s watching of the football cup final, with a message about work is one that won’t be appreciated!

This is very similar to telemarketing, an industry which has presently reputed to have over 7.5 million people registered on the TPS bared list who have opted out of further promotional telemarketing communications.

Encourage forwarding

Encouraging recipients to forward your messages is an art more than a science and is only suited to certain products and services. What is obvious, is that if you can increase your reach using word-of-mouth, then your broadcast costs per recipient drop considerably.

SMS Services provided by Adestra

Adestra provide inbound and outbound SMS marketing services. For more information, please click here