How to Run a Profitable and non-SPAM Text Campaign

“In 2022, 70% of consumers subscribe to SMS marketing, indicating a 12% year-over-year growth in opt-in rates. The majority of consumers (55%) are currently subscribed to receive texts from 1 - 5 business, largely for things like shipping notifications, appointment/ reservation reminders, special offers, and promo codes.” (Source: SimpleTexting)

As the prevalence of mobile marketing continues to grow, businesses everywhere need to make sure they are implementing effective and safe marketing strategies to promote sales, engage customers, and keep your audience informed.

That being said, a successful and non-SPAM text marketing campaign involves much more than mass texts. In fact, the goal would be to try to plan your strategy with no mass SMS messages at all. Does that sound impossible? Well, with a little planning, we promise it’s smooth sailing.

Step 1. Identify your “why” for the message

Along the same vein as the infamous motivational speaker Simon Sinek, if you work to find your ‘why,’ then in that process you will also find the ‘how.’ This works in marketing because when we set goals, we know what to aim for, and we can start to think backwards on how we might get there.

When planning out your marketing goals for each overall campaign, we always suggest starting with S.M.A.R.T. goals (specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound) to ensure your planned automations meet the objectives outlined.

What might be a goal used in this situation? Perhaps something like, “Increase conversion rate of lost intro-offer clients over the past quarter.” If you like that idea, keep reading. We’ll walk you through our suggestions with this example each step of the way.

Step 2. Choose an automation platform

In today’s marketing environment, it’s smart to make sure you’re investing in a marketing platform that allows you to grow your business and one of the factors that should factor in is SMS capabilities. That being said, if you are not a current LoopSpark customer, we highly encourage you to learn more about us and all the things we can do for your business here. With our numerous integrations, not only does LoopSpark access the most amount of client data across the market, our platform does include email, SMS, automated to-do’s for your team, and a recently added feature of forms & waivers. We know our platform can help you grow your business and engage your customers but the important parts of this article still ring true regardless of your platform choice.

When choosing an automation platform, these are the top things we hear from real studio owners about what matters to them most:

• Access to knowledgeable support staff
• The ability to automate messages and initiate single messages organically
• Segment clients in a highly specific manner versus general lists
• Build in customization to messages for accuracy

So, of course the next logical question would be - Can LoopSpark do all of those things and the answer is yes. Yes, we absolutely can and not just for SMS but for all automations in our platform (email and tasks too!).

Step 3. Identify your client groups

This is also known as segmentation and it’s an incredibly important part of a successful SMS campaign for a few reasons. First, the more narrow your grouping is, the more specific your overall message can be. Second, by narrowing your audience you will also maintain operating within existing TCPA compliance laws (Telephone Consumer Protection Act).

What might some examples be? Great question, here are some of our favorite ways to engage/ re-engage intro offer purchasers:

• Intro Offer is about to expire and you want to remind them of their deals
• Intro Offer is down to the last 24 hours and maybe you’re reminding them of deals or adding something to the pot.
• Intro Offer expired 72 hours ago but that’s ok, you’re still willing to honor the deals you shared previously
• Intro Offer expired over a week ago, they have not been back into your studio, and have made no purchases since their expiration.

The list of ideas could go infinitely but, depending on how you have your pricing options structured, one or a few of those ideas might be wise for you to implement.

Step 4. Choose an incentive

This step is wildly important for your business and the client receiving this communication. First, please make sure that the incentive you are about to offer makes sense financially for your business. Two, it’s equally important that the incentive is built to be special enough to peak your clients’ interest when they do read this message.

Once you run the numbers and are happy with any sales, promo codes, giveaways, etc. that you may have decided on, we want you to put yourself in the clients’ shoes and when you read the message with the incentive attached, ask yourself “Does this actually excite me?”

If the initial answer is ‘no,’ that’s a good thing. So many businesses put out generic sales they see from competitors which then become “the norm,” to your clients so put the time in and think of a few offers if the first one doesn’t feel right. If your initial answer is ‘yes,’ then you hit the nail on the head and can move forward to building and activating your campaign.

Step 5. Look at the analytics

After you have built out your text campaign using the steps above and it’s been running for a few weeks (we like to say test something for 2 - 4 weeks), you must take a look back to see where things worked and maybe where things did not work.

As you analyze the data, here are the top areas to examine and tips for adjustments:

• What was the open rate? This shows the percentage of recipients that opened your message. If you find that your open rate was lower than expected, things to play with would be day of the week, time of day sent, and even looking to make sure that audience is as “laser focused” as it could be.
• What was the delivery rate? This lets you gauge the vitality of your subscriber base. The biggest factors that can aid in a poor delivery rate are the number provided for that client is no longer active or the SMS was flagged as by the carrier itself. Don’t worry, LoopSpark gives you all the information so if you do start to see bounce rates increase, you can clean your list which ensures you are communicating with the most viable contacts.
• What was the conversion rate of that incentive? This tells you how many people took you up on your offer or took action because of it. Of course this is a big metric to calculate the overall return of your text campaign. If your conversion rate was lower than you’d like, analyze the offer itself to see if it could be improved and also investigate the digital channels for how clients could access that incentive. For example, if the incentive was accessible through many digital channels, that may have altered the conversion rate.

What’s the take-home message?

With SMS marketing, you are consistently reaching out and making contact with your customers, and ensuring that their experience is not only positive but continuous. By keeping your customers engaged and feeling like VIPs, you build customer relationships, provide a personalized touch, and reward them with exclusive offers. With our top 5 steps you’ll build campaigns that serve your audience vs bother them and in doing so, build your business’ reputation and revenue.