Ready to start your SMS marketing program? It does not take much to get going with this marketing channel. After taking just five simple steps, your program can be up and running. Be sure to follow our tips so that you develop a foundation for a strong program that achieves your business goals.

Create an objective

Before you go too far down the path of creating your SMS marketing program, you need to develop a clear objective. One of the biggest mistakes marketers make is to run a campaign with no clear goal in mind. In fact, 57 percent of marketers continually work without a defined objective with their campaigns. The problem with this is that it leaves you rudderless, so your campaign flounders. You might try to do too much, or you might not have an idea of how to structure your messages to get people to take your desired action. 

So, how do you create an objective? You and your team get together to determine what you hope to achieve from your text marketing program. Goals might include: 

• Increasing your reach
• Finding more customers 
• Boosting sales
• Moving products
• Improving the customer experience
• Engaging with customers 
• Promoting your business 

The most important thing is that your objective is clear, defined, and manageable. It is best to concentrate on one main goal in the beginning. Additionally, make sure your objective aligns with your overall business goals, as well as the objectives of your other marketing channels. Your texting program does not live on its own, so from the beginning, you want to see how it complements the rest of your efforts.

Choose a keyword

Now that you have an idea of what you want your SMS marketing campaign to do for your business, it is time to choose a keyword that will help you to achieve your goal. You will most likely have more than one keyword over the course of your campaign. Keywords act as the foundation for your efforts. They are the words that you use in your promotional materials to motivate subscribers to join your campaign. 

How do you choose the right keyword for your business? Well, you ideally want something that is simple, appealing, and memorable. It is best to work with something relevant to your industry, company, or the campaign itself. Just be sure to keep it short -- to one word -- and do not use special characters. 

Promote your campaign

Once you have your keywords, you are ready to start promoting your campaign. SMS marketing is a permission-based medium, so it is essential that you have permission to text everyone on your subscriber list. How do you grow your list? By promoting it! Luckily, it is easy to promote your texting program. You can choose to create marketing materials related to your program and make sure they get to your potential subscribers. Additionally, you can simply add a blurb about the program on all existing marketing collateral as a call-to-action, since it takes little space.

Where should you promote your campaign? The possibilities are endless: 

• Flyers
• Email newsletters
• Vehicle wraps
• Billboards
• TV ads
• Radio spots
• Posters
• Print ads
• In-store promotions 
• Blog
• Webpage
• Social media profile

Wherever you normally market your business serves as a potential place to promote your campaign. The best places to push it are in the areas where people already follow your company. For example, those who follow your social media profiles or subscribe to your email newsletters are already predisposed to engage with you. Therefore, they make the best audience to initially target, especially if you provide them with an incentive to follow you on another channel.

Send texts

Once you have your list, it is time to start sending texts. You want to take the time to develop strong content that provides value to your customers. Your messages should be: 

• Relevant
• Personal 
• Timely 

You have a whole array of options for message types, including: 

• Offers and deals
• Customer service messages
• Transactional messages
• Appointment and event reminders
• Tips 
• Product announcements 

Find out what your customers want and provide them with messages that meet those expectations. You also want to follow a schedule to ensure that you do not overwhelm your customers with more texts that they want. 

Monitor and adjust as needed

Once you get your SMS marketing program going, the work does not stop. It is important that you continually monitor your program. Your SMS marketing platform will have a variety of analytics to review, which typically include: 

• Opt-in rate
• Opt-out rate
• Conversion rate
• Click-through rate

By reviewing this information, you will have an idea of what works -- and what does not. For example, if you notice a high number of opt-outs after you send a particular type of message, then you know that your audience does not want those type of messages. 

The most important thing is not only to review the messages but also to make any necessary adjustments. You want to keep doing this for the life of your SMS marketing program because what works brilliantly now might not work forever. If you catch downward trends early, then you can make adjustments before you have a major problem. 

Ready to get started with text marketing for your business? Once you have steps one and two complete, then try ClubTexting for free and see how effective your campaign can be.