7 Pillars of Bulk SMS Marketing that you cannot avoid - Kirusa - Konnect

Kabir, a newly appointed Assistant Marketing Manager at an after-sales Automotive start-up, recently rolled out an extensive SMS marketing campaign, with an aim to engage more with the current customers by reminding them of service dates, festive offers, etc., and reach out to potential customers instantly.

He and his team spent days tracking the data, hoping to see a significant return on investment from the bulk SMS campaign. However, to their disappointment, the response isn’t as expected.

On the other side, an 18-year old student, David, is perplexed on receiving recurring SMS broadcasts to bring his SUV for the monthly service. He was about to ignore them when to his utter surprise, one of the messages included valid registration details. David instinctively reports the negligence to the support team, that further escalated it to Kabir.

A careful audit of the recipients highlighted the substantial mismatch between the target group and intended communications, that led Kabir to pause and rethink the entire SMS marketing service. He wondered if using inbound SMS for current customers was the answer, but was hesitant to try.

Eager to employ a much efficient SMS marketing system, with regular delivery and response service, Kabir eventually decided to sign up with Kirusa’s Konnect portal that offers a robust strategized set of bulk SMS solutions.

Why Bulk SMS Marketing?

As marketers, we don’t ever want to be ‘that guy’ and jeopardize our campaign. We do agree that cheap bulk SMS service offers a plethora of benefits, such as, open and read rates of over 98%, flexibility, high ROI and low costs, convenient, and targeted two-way communication, etc. However, it would be misleading to say that a standard campaign may work for varied target groups and perform as expected across all. Each product or service requires tailor-made, purpose-led, and efficient marketing through SMS.

At Kirusa Konnect, we are dedicated to helping you make most of your low-cost bulk SMS service. Hence, here are 7 Pillars of Bulk SMS Marketing that you cannot avoid:

Update your phonebook, with your customer's consent

It is no rocket science that a bulk SMS sender would require a robust list of people for the effectiveness of the campaign. However, in the quest of increasing the list, we should aim at reducing the ratio of customers who might be inherently disinterested and would likely unsubscribe.

As a marketer or sales personnel many of our direct campaigns, such as mailers, newsletters, etc. provide portals or forms to current or potential customers to sign up. In the same way, inbound SMS could also be used to encourage more voluntary opt-ins. While increasing quantity, we must improve quality.

1. Know your customer and respect their interests

Well, Kabir’s experience made this point very clear. Right targeting requires right segmentation from the start. Each target group varies by past purchase behavior, demography and persona, hence, the actions are bound to differ.

It helps to know ‘a little extra’ about your customer, through historical data or new primary research. We have to agree that it feels special when ‘discount’ messages align with our e-commerce shopping wish list, while, it is absurd to receive ‘summer body offers’ on the onset of winters!

1. Be straightforward or go home

It is expected of a bulk SMS sender to understand that we live in a generation of endless notifications (or noise) and the fight for an individual’s undivided attention is real!

Concise, precise, and meaningful, key traits of any effective communication, hold true for bulk messages as well. An SMS broadcast should have a clear message with a specific call-to-action. Any sense of urgency, limited-period-offers, appointments, etc., should be direct, without drama. Additionally, personalized messages, similar to Kabir’s service reminders, help enhance a sense of belonging in customers.

1. Tune your timing and delivery

Stand-up comedy is proof that delivery and timing can make or break a joke or your entire career!

Identifying the right time to send an SMS can make all the difference needed in your target group’s action. Also, broadcasting the SMS without a set frequency lacks impact. The gap between the communications should be neither too long that people forget, nor too less that they deliberately ignore.

However, an SMS is powerless if not delivered when required. The bulk SMS service provider should be validated for such services, along with a due audit of words used in the communication, along with confirmation of phone numbers, etc.

1. Monitor and improve on the go

Each marketing effort demands effective measurement techniques. Given we now live in a data-driven world, insights from historic patterns can help us identify what works and what doesn’t, that would ultimately help us improvise our future SMS marketing techniques.

Different metrics can help measure reach, activity, impressions, conversions, etc. This can help conduct informed experiments, such as introducing new offers at different times and with different target customer.

1. Testing is better than wasting

Every innovation requires rapid prototyping. In the same way, future effectiveness of a new message or target group can be tested in advance. This is similar to testing samples of new beauty products or food items, before making the purchase.

This action leads to build trust and credibility in the campaign and increases chances of intended outcomes.

1. Cleaner the database, more the ROI

Companies investing heavily in bulk SMS marketing should aim to minimize cost and effort spent on old or unresponsive contacts, as the same can be repurposed for reaching out to a new customer base. After all, inefficiency can go against using bulk SMS for cheaper, instant marketing.

The strike rate followed to remove a customer is three in the industry, however, this can be decided internally based on the response rate suggested by the historical data.

That’s where Konnect's bulk SMS solutions have got your back, from sending the right message, at the right time, for the right customer, with a clear call-to-action, to providing ongoing results.

Hi, I’m Amilia. I am a Digital marketing enthusiast, passionate about productivity.My three favourite things include marketing, psychology and design. Currently a marketer at Kirusa, Inc.