Complete Guide to Promotional SMS &
Building One for Your Business
Summary: If you’ve ever received a message from a
business sharing upcoming discounts, festival offers, and sales on selected
merchandize, then you have engaged with the marketing of that brand.
Promotional messages are designed to attract more customers by sharing the
business news and updates, so that the customers can engage with the brand. The
post describes all that you need to know about the promotional SMS.
A promotional message, as the name suggests,
is a message that promotes a business, a product, or a service to prospects. Such
messages inform the customers about the product promotional deals, festive
offers, and seasonal discounts. Businesses around the world run marketing
campaigns to engage customers and increase sales. For running a successful SMS
campaign, it’s important that the marketers must ask for prior consent of
customers through subscriptions and forms.
Marketers can send promotional messages to non-DND
numbers only. It can only be sent to the customers who have opted or subscribed
to receive business communication. The marketing teams must be capable enough
to prepare a strong promotional campaign and run it successfully to attract
more customers and achieve higher sales. To accomplish this objective, it is
important that the business must partner with a reliable bulk SMS serviceprovider.
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In this article, we’ll elaborate on the
following ü Difference between promotional and
transactional messages ü How to build and run effective promotional
SMS campaign ü Tips to write an effective promotional
message |
Difference between Promotional & Transactional Messages
Promotional messages are used by businesses
to send sales and marketing information to the customers. Such messages help
sharing seasonal offers, discounted deals, and business updates with the
prospects and acquire more customers to promote sales. Promotional SMS are
time-restrictive and marketers can only share such messages with the customers
from 9 am to 9 pm.
Examples for promotional SMS includes the
weekly deals offered by a brand, buy 1 get 1 free offer, flat 50% discounts,
and flat sales running in the online or offline stores.
Transactional messages, on the other side,
are used to share information such as OTPs, payment details, order receipt,
booking alerts, delivery status, etc. with the customers. These messages are
highly secured and are delivered to all registered contact numbers, regardless
of their DND and non-DND status. No prior consent of the customers is required
to send these messages and the customers may receive transactional messages any
time of the day.
Transactional messages are used by banks for
sending OTPs, account activity update, or transactional details with the
customers. eCommerce stores also use transactional messages to keep the
customer informed about the product order details and delivery status.
How to Build & Run Effective Promotional SMS Campaign
Well, this is something that demands
marketing expertise and you need to consult a reliable bulk SMS service
provider to achieve expected outcomes. Here’s the most professional
procedure that you may follow to build and run a promotional SMS campaign and
achieve success. First you need to describe your business goals to your
provider and it will then suggest you a messaging plan that best meets your
business requirements.
You need to perform a proper marketing
research and know more about the current industry demographics. It’s imperative
that your campaign must attract and engage customers with the brand. Know your
audience by developing the buyer’s persona so that you can understand your
customers better.
Build a strategic plan to know what actually
you need to achieve. Make sure to reach out to all the influencers and
stakeholders so that they can contribute equally in promoting the campaign. Organize
your promotional calendar so that you can share to-the-moment marketing updates
with your customers in a timely manner.
Make sure to interact with your bulk SMS
service provider effectively so that they can help you setup a successful
campaign. You may ask your service provider several questions to ensure smooth running
of the campaign.
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Ask about
bulk SMS plans in detail
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Do not
forget about asking the features of the bulk SMS software and its working
procedure.
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Make sure
that the service provider is using direct delivery routes for sending SMS.
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Explore
more about the branded Sender ID and the total number of recipients you can add
for bulk SMS sending.
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Ensure
that the service provider is having an established Support team for resolving
technical glitches (if any).
Tips to Write Effective Promotional SMS
While writing a promotional SMS, the
marketers need to use compelling and enticing words that customers can notice
easily and gets attracted to. Here are few tips that may help you develop a
result-oriented marketing message.
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Personalize
your promotional SMS to your business goals.
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Determine
your business goals and explore what you want to achieve.
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Be
professional, precise, and transparent while writing a promotional message.
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Be clear
and avoid using fancy words that creates confusions/ misapprehensions.
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Do not
forget to add a call-to-action statement or button in your promotional message.
SMS marketing is the most affordable, easy,
and quickest way to reach the customers and communicate business updates. The
success rates of bulk SMS messaging campaigns are surprising higher and hence
businesses are adopting this highly-optimized marketing strategy to gain more
customers, boost retention, and surge sales.
