The most important way to extend your clients’ engagement with your brand is to be in regular contact with them. How do you do it, though? Since almost everyone owns a phone, SMS marketing has emerged as the most efficient and straightforward way to communicate with customers via brief messages.
Promotional SMS marketing messages and transactional SMS messages are two kinds of messages that your company can send to increase client engagement, retention, lifetime value, and other factors. Both are significant. Both frequently achieve extremely high open rates—above 90%. However, there are important differences between them, and if you want to interact with your customers as effectively as possible, you must be completely aware of these differences.
This article explains the differences between transactional and promotional text messaging, provides examples of both, and offers advice on how to use promotional SMS efficiently.
What is a promotional SMS?
Text messages that a company sends out for marketing or advertising are referred to as promotional SMS.
Usually, promotional SMS marketing messages promote goods, services, discounts, coupons, or occasions. Offering clients the chance to participate in a survey or quiz, informing them of an impending sale or deadline, or announcing the launch of a new product are all examples of promotional SMS messages.
They can also persuade someone to buy something, click on a link that leads to a specific landing page, complete a survey, write a review, look through products, and much more!
What distinguishes transactional SMS from promotional SMS?
How you use SMS texts determines whether they are transactional or promotional. In general, transactional SMS are used to inform clients of the status of their order or transaction, whereas promotional SMS are used to advertise your company.
Here are some methods for distinguishing between transactional and promotional SMS:
Goals for marketing versus non-marketing
There is a marketing objective behind promotional SMS texts delivered for marketing.
A higher click-through rate, a higher conversion rate, more opt-ins, new revenue, or other types of consumer involvement are all goals the company is working for. These are not usually the objectives of transactional SMS messages.
Promotional SMS are delivered with marketing motive.
Promotional SMS marketing is typically used to draw in your audience and encourage them to do a certain action that supports your marketing goals. In either instance, they are delivered to individuals who have specifically chosen to receive them, whether businesses send them as one-time texts or as part of ongoing promotional SMS campaigns.
Conversely, transactional SMS messages typically concentrate on giving a client crucial details unique to a transaction or account activity, such as signing in from a different device. Later on, you will encounter additional instances of this.
Customer care versus commercial message
Sending text messages to promote goods, services, or exclusive deals is known as promotional SMS. SMS may be a useful tool for companies to interact with clients and offer customer support. However, the primary purpose of transactional text messages is to deliver updates or important information regarding transactions or account activity. A shipping update, for instance, is transactional since it provides the recipient with immediate information regarding the status of their order and guarantees a satisfactory delivery service, which increases customer happiness and trust.
Opt-in is required for promotional SMS.
In order to deploy promotional SMS messages, organizations must obtain client consent. Sending unsolicited text messages without authorization is prohibited. And the consequences can be rather harsh. We’ve compiled a list of best practices and pointers to assist you expand your promotional SMS opt-in list.
Although it’s not always necessary, we strongly advise getting a recipient’s express agreement before sending them a transactional SMS. Think about the shipping update example once again. A company may send you a text message informing you of the status of your purchase’s delivery even if you never choose to participate in SMS marketing.
Customers value the ease these communications offer throughout their journey, and many will anticipate this as part of their transaction. However, obtaining prior consent reinforces your company’s dedication to protecting the privacy and preferences of your customers.
In order to comply with business communications laws, opt-in is crucial. To get you started, we may also suggest some best practices for transactional and promotional SMS.
Give CTA in Promotional SMS
The phrase “call to action” essentially refers to persuading recipients to take action following the delivery of a promotional marketing message. It could involve completing a customer satisfaction survey, writing a review, or a lot more than just making a purchase.
However, a choice must be made, and the CTA outlines that choice.
However, transactional SMS does not necessitate a choice. These communications are primarily intended to provide you with information, such as a confirmation or receipt. Verifying that you are the right person to be login into a device is sometimes all that is required.
Both transactional and promotional messages can now be used by many businesses. Consider an online store as an example. If you purchase something, you may receive a transactional message verifying your purchase. They may also send you promotional messages about a flash sale or a limited-time deal. You may receive another transactional message with a delivery update a few days later. Additionally, you may receive a promotional message for review after your product arrives.
Examples of promotional SMS
Here are a few typical instances of how you can strengthen your relationship with your clients by using promotional text messaging.
1) Flash sales
Keep in mind that text messages, especially the text-only type, are brief—less than 160 characters. However, if you send Rich SMS or MMS messages—which may contain graphics and images—they may be lengthier. Additionally, a lot of people read their text messages within minutes of getting them. Email and all other kinds of marketing are not the same as this.
SMS marketing works well for flash sales because of its briefness and speed. Using SMS to announce new sales within hours or days before a deadline works well because the majority of your subscribers will see it in time to decide.
2) Limited time offers
Similarly, urgent offers work well for SMS marketing. Time may not be the cause of your urgency. It might also have to do with quantity—for example, “we only have 38 left in stock!”—and the need for anyone thinking about buying to make a decision quickly.
3) Discount coupon
Because promotional SMS is brief, it works well for sending out coupon codes. Because of the character limit, the message can be a simple, eye-catching approach to promote a promotion and provide clients the discount code they need right away.
During holidays like Black Friday, when consumers are actively looking for the greatest offers, this strategy may be very effective. This is the perfect opportunity to take use of the instantaneous nature of promotional SMS to increase sales.
4) Promotion of products
Highlighting a specific product is another effective application of promotional SMS or MMS marketing.
When you just choose one product, you can highlight one of its main features, an innovative application, a glowing customer review, or anything else that truly captures your clients’ interest and encourages them to buy. Making a single product attractive requires intense focus!
Additionally, they can use Rich SMS to incorporate conversational messaging, a landing page, and other visually appealing material into the SMS campaign to better engage their target audience. Positive feedback has been received.
5) VIP exclusives
SMS is an excellent way to give VIP members invites, exclusive offers, incentives, and other benefits if you have any kind of loyalty program. Making it clear that this material is being sent to your most devoted clients is crucial.
Promotional SMS Tips
Some of the best tactics to guarantee the success of your promotional SMS campaigns have already been shown to you. Here is a summary of the top advice:
1) Obtain consent
The law mandates that you obtain consent before sending promotional SMS messages. However, some approaches work far better than others. Employ these SMS list expansion techniques to develop your subscriber base and retain them over time.
2) Keep it concise
You can only utilize 160 characters when sending SMS, and some of those characters must be used to provide the receiver the option to opt out with a brief message such as “reply stop to unsubscribe.” There are only 140 characters left for your real message, which is already around 20 characters.
Only include the most important details; save the rest for your email marketing and landing page.
You have more options if you use MMS or Rich SMS, but most smartphone users who check their text messages aren’t used to seeing lengthy sales advertisements and lengthy articles. By keeping your text message marketing concise and direct, you’ll retain more subscribers.
3) Make sure your call to action is obvious.
Your call to action is one of the most important components of your campaign. Notifying your subscribers of the precise action you want them to perform after reading your message is crucial.
Here are a few instances of successful CTAs:
- Apply the XYZ promo code.
- Launch the survey
- Write a review
- See products.
- Buy now
To ensure that your audience is aware of what comes next, your call to action should be brief, clear, and direct.
4) Personalize
In SMS marketing, personalization is just as effective as it is in other channels.
They can deliver highly targeted promotional SMS messages by segmenting lists into persons they know better based on factors like purchase history, the reasons behind the subscribers’ opt-in, and other details.
Because the messages are pertinent to their interests, these divided groups will value this.
Anyone who asks a resort for information is most likely looking for outdoor activities. Therefore, a smart method to tailor your offer is to send ticket offers to these individuals.
5) Develop a feeling of urgency
Finally, instill a feeling of urgency to encourage a speedier choice. The two most prevalent and straightforward types of urgency are time and quantity. This is particularly important in SMS since there isn’t enough space to communicate more complex types of urgency.
Don’t overlook this, though. The promo code is about to expire. The exclusive price for the new product is valid only through Saturday. There are not many tickets left!
Examples of transactional SMS
Here are some samples of transactional SMS messages to help you understand the differences:
- Notifications about shipping and delivery: allow clients to choose the day, time, and other particulars for every transaction they make; they can also automate this process with SMS.
- Updates on the status of orders: This is a post-purchase SMS that details the confirmation, shipment, and delivery dates of your product.
- Verification: These are most frequently employed when security and privacy are at stake. When clients are doing specific tasks, like confirming a one-time password, use OTP SMS to confirm.
- Booking confirmations: This transactional SMS lets users know that they are scheduled and in the system when they make an appointment. If the appointment is virtual, these typically include the time, date, and video chat connection.
- Reminders for appointments: As the appointment date approaches, straightforward SMS reminders assist everyone in remembering to reserve the time and not missing it.
Start sending out promotional SMS.
You’re ready to begin creating your SMS marketing campaign now that you’ve seen a number of promotional SMS text examples, understand the distinctions between transactional and promotional text messaging, and know how to get your promotional SMS marketing strategy off the ground.
But where do you start? Selecting the appropriate SMS provider should be your initial course of action. It is crucial to locate a long-term match because you do not want to have to make this decision every two months.
We’ve put together a guide explaining why Arihant Global is India’s top provider of promotional SMS services to make things easier.
Or, arrange a time to talk to us. Our staff is available at all times to discuss how to maximize the effectiveness of your SMS marketing.
