5 SMS Marketing Tips for Small Businesses

A number of small and local businesses do not have Short Message Service (SMS) marketing high on their priority list. The primary reason for this is the stringent anti-spam laws that govern marketing strategies. American businesses are bound by the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) that can impose a fine of anywhere between $500 to $1500 per unsolicited text message sent. This can add up quite exponentially if you have been making use of bulk marketing techniques.

While text spam is dealt with quite strictly, it is perfectly possible to stay clear of violations and still make a killing off SMS marketing. Consider this -- the average open rate for emails is somewhere between 20-30 percent. In comparison, the open rate for a SMS is nearly 98 percent. And nearly 90 percent of SMS recipients open their text messages in the first three seconds. The potential return on investment here is too attractive to let go of.

Email marketers routinely send promotional messages to recipients who downloaded their PDF or signed up for a free trial. This is not possible with SMS marketing. The correct way to do this is to ask your prospects to manually click a checkbox to opt-in or by asking them to subscribe personally by sending you a text message with relevant keywords. This makes lead acquisition much harder, but in terms of quality, these leads are a lot more valuable and consequently convert better.

Read the article here:  https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/279237