Looking for a way to engage with customers directly and drive more sales? It may be time to consider SMS marketing. Promotional text messages are quickly becoming marketers’ favorite tools, as they have one of the highest open rates.
If executed correctly, an SMS marketing strategy can drive traffic wherever you want, be it your website, social media pages, e-commerce platform, or physical shop.
The key is to craft engaging texts that encourage customers to interact with you or make purchases without sounding overly sales-driven.
Let’s dive into why text message marketing is a modern marketer’s dream and provide examples of effective promotional text messages to guide you.
Benefits of promotional SMS marketing for brands
While traditional forms of marketing like email are still valuable for today’s businesses, SMS marketing is giving them a run for their money. Many marketers are turning to SMS opt-ins to drive sales and outpace their competition because it’s a more direct line of communication between brands and customers.
This seemingly simple strategy works equally well for large, mid-sized, and small businesses. Here’s why:
Immediate delivery and high open rates
Be honest—do you open every email delivered to your inbox, especially if you see that the sender is a brand? No, right? How about SMS messages? Chances are, you’ve opened nearly all of them, even if only to clear the notification from your screen.
But with the right messaging, that quick glimpse may be all a brand needs to pique a customer’s interest and get them to engage.
Emails have an average open rate of nearly 38%, while SMS messages have a 98% open rate, which is why more brands are moving toward SMS marketing.
This is easy enough to prove—ask your friends or colleagues to give you a glimpse of their email inbox and text messages. They’ll likely have more unopened emails than text messages.
The reality is that while email marketing is a great way to reach a broad target audience, you can’t be sure customers will read or even open your messages. Text messages are a whole different story.
People are quick to open and read them because the instant notification creates a sense of urgency. Plus, they’re typically short, so you don’t have to think about setting time aside to read them—a few seconds is all it takes. This makes SMS the best medium for timely message delivery.
Cost-effective solution
If you’re working with a tight budget, SMS marketing’s cost-effectiveness is another reason to give it a try.
While platforms charge differently based on their features, the average cost of tools with a pay-as-you-go pricing strategy is between $0.024 and $0.049 per message. Subscription-based tools charge anywhere from $20 to $1,250 monthly for 500 to 50,000 texts.
SMS marketing’s cost-effectiveness gives it one of the greatest potentials for a high return on investment (ROI).
With a solution like Bitly, you can almost guarantee a high ROI, as you get to see which type of messaging works and which doesn’t. When you use Bitly’s mobile links in your SMS campaigns, you can see the number of clicks each link or code receives, as well as the click locations.
These insights can help you focus your spending on messaging strategies that work and audiences that engage the most with you.
Enhances customer engagement
SMS allows for personalized communication, facilitating high customer engagement rates. You can create a tailored experience for your target audience by personalizing messages with customers’ purchase histories or exclusive offers—something nearly impossible to do with strategies intended for large audiences, like social media or print marketing.
Engagement rates are also high in SMS marketing because customers can quickly and easily respond to messages that prompt a reply, like requests for reviews.
What makes promotional text messages effective?
SMS marketing has extremely high click-through rates of 21–35%, making it one of the most effective marketing strategies. However, you can’t get the desired results if your message isn’t compelling enough to stir your target audience to action. To make your promotional text messages effective:
- Include a strong call to action (CTA) in all texts to direct customers on what to do.
- Personalize your message to establish a connection with customers.
- Ensure your message is clear and concise.
- Make sure your message adds value. For example, you could text customers about discounts, upcoming sales, or product launches.
Bitly can help you refine these elements through performance tracking and analytics if you include Bitly Links in your texts. For example, you can create two links to direct customers to your website and send the first along with a message that addresses customers by their name and the second with a text that simply says “Hi” to determine how important it is for you to address your audience by name.
8 samples of promotional text messages that work
Do you feel like you’re in uncharted waters? Don’t worry! Below are some promotional message examples to inspire your text message marketing campaigns:
1. Flash sale announcement
A flash sale is one of the best ways to increase sales, as it creates a sense of urgency, and it’s a great form of SMS marketing for the slow season. When crafting a flash sale text message, use time-sensitive language and clear CTAs to prompt immediate action. Here’s an example:
Hey there! Friday flash sale at [brand name] is now on. Get your favorite products at up to 60% off for the next 12 hours! Ready, set, sale! [link]
Provide a short link that directs customers to your site or e-commerce platform to make the purchase process seamless and enable you to track how many users engage with the text.
With click data, you can compare how flash sale announcements perform against other promotional texts for strategic decision-making.
2. Event promotion
Text message invitations to your event can maximize attendance. To encourage positive responses, mention some of the benefits of attending, provide clear RSVP instructions, and, if registration is required, provide a link to take potential attendees directly to your registration platform or landing page and gauge invitee interest.
An event promo message could look something like:
Hi, [brand] here! Join us for an exclusive event on [date and time]. You’ll enjoy interactive workshops, socialize with other like-minded people, and take some goodies home! To RSVP, tap here: [link].
3. Loyalty program invitation
Want to boost customer loyalty? Enroll them in a loyalty program where they can earn rewards for purchases. You don’t have to wait for customers to come physically to your store to register them in the program—send a text message that mentions the potential benefits of joining to encourage self-registration. And don’t forget to provide a trackable link to get insights into your strategy’s effectiveness.
Here’s an SMS template you can use:
Love shopping at [brand]? Join our loyalty program to earn points with every purchase and access exclusive offers and surprise gifts! Register now at [link] and let the earning begin!
4. New product alert
Text messages are a great way to build momentum around new products and encourage sales. If you’ve just launched a new offering, use an enthusiastic tone and provide a link to view the product online to make it easy for customers to do so. Also, create a sense of urgency to encourage immediate action and use a clear CTA to direct your audience on what to do.
The long wait is finally over! [Product name] has just hit our shelves and is waiting for you. Grab yours now at [link] before it sells out.
5. Customer feedback request
Wondering what you can improve to attract new customers? Ask for help from your current customers through a review or survey request.
While it may be tempting to ask them to leave positive reviews, don’t, as this could impact their willingness to provide feedback. It may also fail to provide an accurate picture of how customers experience your products or services.
Instead of trying to control what they write, ask for an honest review (both good and bad). Here’s an example of how to get reviews by text:
Hi [customer’s name], thank you for your recent purchase. What do you think of [product name] so far? Please leave your honest review: [link]
6. Exclusive discounts for subscribers
Exclusive discounts are an excellent way to keep subscribers interested in you and encourage engagement. Use SMS to send exclusive discounts to maximize your open rates.
As with other promotional messages, your text should clearly state what subscribers stand to gain from engaging with you. You can use the following text message template:
Hey [subscriber’s name], thank you for your continued support. To show our appreciation, here’s a [%] off promo code for your next order. Tap [link] to redeem.
7. Birthday special offer
Sending an SMS with a personalized birthday offer is a great way to make customers feel valued and encourage loyalty. Collect customer birthdate information during the sign-up or account creation process to ensure you get it right.
When the time comes, craft a personalized message that either refers to them by name or references their purchase history or interests to make them feel even more special. Here’s a sample template:
Hey [customer’s name], it’s your day! Happy birthday from [brand name]! Get [%] off your next purchase by tapping [link]
8. Re-engagement campaign messaging
Sometimes, customers stop engaging with you simply because you don’t give them reasons to stay loyal. Give them some reasons by reminding them what you have to offer or providing incentives.
Hello there! It’s been a while since we heard from you. Here is a special welcome-back coupon just for you! [link]
Use branded links when re-engaging past customers to enhance brand recognizability and instill trust—this can result in more clicks.
How to integrate promotional SMS into your marketing strategy
Text marketing campaigns can contribute significantly to your overall marketing goals, making integrating promotional SMS into your marketing an excellent strategy. Here’s how to do it:
Align SMS with your marketing goals
Define clear objectives that complement broader marketing goals to make tracking and measuring your overall performance easier. Aligning goals can also ensure consistency in messaging across all marketing channels, strengthening your brand identity.
To define your SMS campaign objectives, start by identifying overall goals. Do you want to increase brand awareness, boost customer loyalty, drive sales, or increase customer engagement?
Set specific goals for your SMS campaign based on your overarching marketing goals. For example, if one of your goals is to drive sales, an SMS goal could be to “increase sales by 15% over the next five months through regular text message product alerts and discounts.”
Coordinate SMS with other channels
Are you running multiple campaigns alongside your text messaging campaign? Coordinate SMS with other channels to increase your response rates, ensure uniformity in all promotional campaigns, and identify your audience’s most preferred communication channels.
Say you’re running text review and post-purchase engagement email marketing campaigns. You can create unique links for each channel through Bitly. This lets you track and compare both mediums’ performance from a centralized platform and facilitates better decision-making.
Continuously optimize SMS campaigns
A poorly performing SMS campaign is more of a liability than an asset for your overall marketing strategy. So, strive for success through continuous optimization.
Change different elements in your SMS campaigns and use Bitly Analytics to monitor their impact on your engagement rates. For example, to determine if coupons are more effective than cashback in getting past customers to re-engage with you, create two messages (one offering coupons and the other cashback) and send them to your audience. Include Bitly Links in the messages to get a visual of the number of clicks each message receives so you can identify what resonates with your audience.
Test other aspects, like message length and CTA versions, and use the performance data to continuously improve your messaging until you come up with the highest-performing SMS. This can enhance your engagement and conversion rates.
Create a stronger promotional SMS campaign with Bitly’s platform
Promotional SMS messages are valuable tools for marketers because they’re cost-efficient and have higher engagement and open rates than other forms of communication. However, creating the perfect SMS marketing message isn’t the easiest of tasks.
That’s where Bitly comes into play. When you use Bitly Links in your promotional messages, you get access to detailed analytics to gauge each message’s performance.
These insights can help you identify the kind of language and incentives that resonate with your audience. Further, you receive geographical click data showing where your most active customers are.
Get started with Bitly today for deep insights into your SMS campaign’s performance and better decision-making.