6 Simple Tricks to Improve Conversion Rates for Your SMS Campaign

Unlike some marketing styles, the potential of SMS marketing is well-researched and well-documented. The potential for success is outstanding, from the initial open rate to the communication that a target audience then goes on to have with the business behind the campaign.

Research shows that 90% of all text messages received are opened and read within 3 seconds. This rapid open rate isn’t just reserved for texts from friends or family. It has also been shown that 29% of mobile-users actively respond to messages sent via marketing campaigns.

The evidence is all in place to suggest that any campaign using text marketing is going to be a success, so what causes some campaigns to suffer from a poor conversion rate?

For any marketing campaign to be successful, the content of the campaign has to be of a high-quality, as does the management, and what a company is offering. The medium of text message can only take you so far before the content and management has to speak for themselves.

So, how can you improve your marketing conversions?

To help you boost the success of your next SMS marketing campaign, here are 6 simple tricks to improve your conversion rates…

1. Add a Clear Call to Action at the End of the Text

A call to action tells your customers what they should be doing and exactly why they should be doing it. It doesn’t have to be an obvious call to action, but it does have to direct your target audience to something more – a clear indication as to what your company hopes to achieve.

Without a call to action at the end of your SMS, you’ll never achieve the kind of conversions that you might be hoping for from your campaign. No matter whether you want customers to visit your website, call you, utilize a promotion, or take part in a poll, it needs to be made clear that the action is what you want and what will be the most beneficial for your audience.

2. Use a Contest to Increase Customer Engagement

Contests have the potential to deliver exceptional conversion rates, benefiting your business and your customers at the same time. A competition provides a clear reason to stay engaged and actively communicate with a company.

The competition could be anything related to your business; as long as there is a tempting reward, it will start to attract attention. This can help with immediate conversion rates, but also long-term return on investment as your customers start advertising your brand for you.

A good competition gets people talking and starts to develop brand awareness outside of your immediate subscriber list. You can even implement additional data gathering to help strengthen your campaigns in the future, like making small polls a part of the entry requirements.

3. Run a Poll to See What Your Audience Are Thinking

Understanding the general consensus on SMS marketing is important, but so is understanding what your consumers in particular think about your methods. Bad methods will lead to bad conversion rates, so it’s worth knowing in advance what your target audience is thinking before they start unsubscribing.

A simple, quick, and informative poll will reveal a wealth of knowledge about what your customers are thinking and also double-up as a way to keep them engaged in your brand. You can even create and send out text-to-vote polls as part of your standard marketing campaign, making it easier than ever before to get an insight into consumer thoughts.

4. Include a Sense of Urgency in the SMS

If you create the idea that there is no time to waste, then customers will feel compelled to act now instead of reading your message and forgetting about it. One of the best ways to create a sense of urgency is by providing limited time offers, reductions, and promotions, or even limited time competitions.

Giving customers something special or exclusive for acting quickly is a two-way benefit: you make your brand memorable and boost conversion rates and your consumers get a reward for acting fast.

5. Streamline the Content of Your Message

For adults under 50 years of age in America, texting is the leading form of communication. Billions of texts are sent on a daily basis, and to stand out amongst the masses, your message has to be loud, clear, and memorable. This means that the content needs to be up to scratch and the message streamlined.

While character limits mean that it’s hard to go into too much detail in a text, it’s still very possible to go into so much detail that you lose the attention of your audience. Streamlining your content creates a better flow, highlights the purpose, and creates enough engagement to push for a conversion at the end of a message.

6. Keep Better Track of Information Gathered

The information that you receive during and after an SMS marketing campaign is invaluable for launching future campaigns with higher conversion rates. Staying on top of what information you have and actively putting in place methods for generating more, will help you to better-tailor your campaigns to fit your target audience.

It’s very simple to keep track of information generated through text marketing. You can track the number of links that have been clicked on, view the number of new subscribers that you have, check the SMS logs, and see how many messages were delivered. All these tools will be available via your SMS marketing software, are easy to use, and can be utilized for every campaign.

You can expect good conversion rates from a well-designed campaign, if you make sure that you’re focusing on the smaller elements of your campaign just as much as you’re focusing on the bigger elements. From the creation of a reason for your customers to be engaged, to tracking when they are, just a few simple changes may be all it takes to enjoy conversion rate success with your SMS marketing campaign.