You launched your text message marketing program and saw an impressive response. For weeks and months, your subscriber numbers rapidly rose and you experienced high engagement rate numbers. Then, it started to slow down and eventually plateaued. Now, your program sees little gain, and you feel as though you are stuck in a rut. If this describes you, then do not fear. There are ways to get out of this marketing rut and, once again, see positive results from your campaign.

Review Your Current Campaign

The first action to take to get yourself out of a text message marketing rut is to review your current campaign. Your analytics provide a wealth of information. See what types of messages had the most impact, and which had the least. See if the time you send your messages is inconvenient based on the open rates. Your opt-out rates may tell you if you send messages to frequently, or if the type of messages you send are inappropriate for the audience.

The analytics also show you where your program started to plateau or drop, which may provide you some insight into possible problems that may have developed. You might also find that you are not integrating your program with your other channels as well as you could.

Ask Yourself or Your Team Some Questions

Now that you have an idea of the intricacies of your current campaign, it is time to start asking yourself some questions to try to understand what changes need to be implemented. Think about what types of messages had the best response. Discount offers tend to be powerful messages, but people still respond differently to different discounts. Your analytics will shine a light on which type of discount had the greatest response, whether it was a particular percentage off, something for free, or a monetary discount. Your audience may prefer to get something free rather than getting $5 off.

Consider any popular products that you could better leverage to get improved results from your program. Ask yourself about your typical customer's demographics and behavior patterns, as well as that of your target audience. This helps you determine whether the messages you send have value to your subscribers. Evaluate your goals and see if they remain valid or need to change.

Do Some Market Research

When you find your program faltering, it may be time to do some additional market research. Even if you spent a lot of time looking into the behavior patterns, expectations, wants and demographics of your target audience before you began, it is important to do some additional research when you find yourself in a rut. Your intended audience may have changed, making the messages no longer have the same value. There might be another audience prime for targeting to get new subscribers to your list as well. You most likely will not have to do as much market research as you did at the start of your program, but you will find it helpful to spend at least some time re-evaluating the needs and wants of your customers.

Try Some New Message Types

You might review your program and not see any big problems or issues that could explain the change in the success of the program. It might be that your customers have simply become complacent or you have neared the saturation point for your current audience.

To shake things up, try out some new message types. If you always send out coupons or deals, try running a contest of some sort. Set up a group of your most loyal customers and offer them exclusive access to sales, such as the opportunity to buy the items at a discount before anyone else. Send out surveys or polls to increase interaction and gain insight into what your customers want. Even if you wish to only send out one type of messages, such as offers and deals, try out some new varieties on the offers, such as flash sales or limited time offers, to give it a fresh look.

Review Your CTAs

One reason that your program may be faltering could be that your calls to action may not be strong enough. Perhaps you are using the wrong words or location within your message for the best efficacy. Or, your CTA might not be clear and concise. Create a sense of urgency so that your customers act now. This might mean that you need to send out offers with a shorter expiration date or utilize language that better motivates people to take action. It may take some trial and error to find new CTAs that work as you want them to. In the long run, it will be worth it to discover the best ones for your company to use.

You can get your company out of a text message marketing rut, but be prepared for it to take some time and effort. SMS marketing, like all marketing programs, changes and evolve over time. If you do not take action to keep it fresh and new, you will find that a once-successful program will start to falter. Instead of letting this happen, spend time evaluating your current program and finding ways to adjust it to meet the new needs of your customers to keep them happy and engaged.

Here comes the Call to Action. Wait for it . . . Contact us to learn more about the different campaigns you can run to keep your program fresh and exciting for your customers. Do it now! Not tomorrow. Now!