How to Choose the Incentive for Your SMS Marketing Opt-In Campaign
When you’re just starting out an SMS campaign, the main dilemma is what to use for an opt in. If it’s too “small” an offer, no one will bother. If it’s too “big”, then you might get lots of people who opt in, then opt out.
It reminds me of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Daddy’s things were way too big and didn’t suit the child. While Mummy’s things weren’t quite right either. What you want to do for your offer is to find the “just right” size. The trouble is your customer is Goldilocks, and you won’t know what offer they like until you give them one, or a few, to try.
You may think it’s incredibly difficult and expensive to test out multiple offers. But it doesn’t have to be. Let’s say you go big (like Daddy’s bed). Your offer generates lots of opt ins, and then people opt out. That might not be so bad. I’ve found some evidence that says that the large incentive opt out rates only run 2-6%. That equates to just a few per hundred opt ins. While I’m not convinced that number holds true for most campaigns (as the source used a limited data set), it is a good starting place.
At the very least, it offers some evidence that going with an incredible (e.g. “Big”) initial opt in offer could be what Goldilocks, I mean your customer, wants.
Try It and See
Assuming you want to grow your list fast, create an amazing offer and see what happens. If your unsubscribe rate is too high, then you know it was Daddy size and not right for your customers (or rather, great for your customers, but not great for growing your list). But at least you hopefully made some money on that single promotion, even if your list size didn’t stay as big as you wanted it to.
Next, try something a little “smaller” like Mummy’s chair or bed (am I taking the analogy too far yet?). If you hit the sweet spot, you’ll likely get people on your list who will stick around and love your brand, product or service. And they’ll also be more likely take action on future messages.
Ideas To Get You Started
If you’re convinced you should start with a big incentive, you might still be wondering what that will be. So here are some ideas to help you narrow down your choices:
- What was the best promotion you ever ran? Could you use that exact offer again, just for people who sign up to your SMS list? If that’s not possible, maybe you can offer something that’s similar enough to draw people in.
- Make a list of the most popular offers you already run in other channels. You can take one of those directly, but consider tweaking it to be just a little better and more exclusive to your SMS list.
- Ask your customers. Send a survey out via other channels – email, or social media – and simply ask them what they’d expect in exchange for their mobile number. This is the best place to start if you have no idea what your customers actually like, or measurements on your other promotion’s performance. The bonus here is you might find out more information that you can use across in other aspects of your business, such as customer service or product development.
Once you decide on your offer and have it advertised anywhere and everywhere you can (but nowhere it can’t be easily changed), don’t get too complacent. Make sure you get right in there and check redemption rates, click through rates, and the unsubscribe rate. Make adjustments based on the results and keep on going. SMS marketing offers one of the highest ROIs you’ll find in mobile marketing – once you find what Goldilocks likes best.
Related Articles
Travel agencies: Take advantage of New Year’s resolutions
How to Capture the Essence of Autumn in Your SMS Marketing Campaign
Growing Your Business with SMS Messaging
What’s in a Keyword? Three Rules to Using Keywords in SMS Marketing
Keywords are single words that can be used within two way SMS marketing campaigns. They can be used in conjunction with SMS shortcodes or with Virtual Mobile Numbers. Learn three basic rules for the use of SMS keywords that will increase click-through rates and conversions.
Using SMS to support drive-to-web strategies
Why you want to keep your SMS marketing database clean
What You Can Learn About SMS Marketing from These 7 Companies
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) issued seven monetary penalties against companies this year. We’ve read through them all – so you don’t have to – and discovered two lessons every company should learn about SMS marketing if they want to be successful.
5 SMS stats to excite any business about SMS
The Role of SMS in Building Consumer Loyalty Programmes
The drive to earn and retain consumer loyalty is big business in the UK. Increasingly, companies are grasping the important role SMS text messaging can play in this. Customers’ mobile phone numbers are gold dust. The most forward-looking companies are developing systems to encourage customers to opt-in. Then, they are structuring SMS campaigns to build loyalty and reap maximum commercial advantage from it.
Email and SMS Marketing are a Perfect Pair
Businesses with limited staff or budgets might ask themselves whether they should use email or SMS marketing. Both are relatively low cost. Both offer the ability to reach many people at the same time, yet provide personal interaction. Both have a long history of being used for marketing.