8 Effective Ways to Improve SMS Campaigns

1. Add Extra Security with OTPs

Most digitally-native brands often require users to create a new account or profile before using their online services. 

To help protect fake, spam, and junk registrations, digitally-native brands can provide an extra layer of security by sending new account registrations a one-time password via SMS. 

By verifying the one-time password sent to the user with your online service, quickly vet out phone numbers that aren't legitimate or actively used by the person creating an account. 

2. Send Up-to-Date Notifications

Using SMS messages is the perfect channel to help brands keep their users informed quickly and reliably. 

Here are a few ways some of CM.com's clients use SMS notifications:

Parkmobile

A business specializing in electronic and digital parking solutions uses CM's SMS API Gateway to send SMS reminders about when your meter is running out of time and messages that provide users with an option to add time to their parking meter. 

"Our service is about trust and guarantee...Our customers want to know when their parking time is running out, so they can go to their car and leave or top-up." - Tomas Novak, Commercial Manager at Parkmobile.

Takeaway.com

A meal-delivery platform uses SMS notifications to keep its hungry users stay informed. 

Through SMS messages, they send users messages confirming their order has been placed, and throughout the process from when the meal is "in preparation," "being picked up," to "out for delivery" to "arriving soon".

SafariNow 

Is Southern Africa's largest accommodation booking website. With thousands of booking notifications going through the SafariNow.com platform each day, reliable communication is of the utmost importance.  

Partnering with a provider that can guarantee stable and fast communication was the primary goal. SafariNow.com turned to CM.com's SMS API to deliver their booking-related notification. 

"CM.com provides an analytics tool that shows real-time information regarding messaging delivery time and rates. Due to the customer-centric approach that CM.com offers, we chose them to deliver our bookers and sellers quick mobile communications." - Matthew Evans, CTO at SafariNow.com

Using SMS messages to send real-time notifications and updates to users enables digitally-native brands to optimize and create a better customer experience.

In addition to notifications delivered via SMS, users can also enable and subscribe to receive Push or SMS notifications for discounts and alerts.  

Using the power of SMS notifications for status updates and discounts is a pivotal force to driving and empowering customer loyalty and retention.

3. Enhance Marketing Objectives

Once you've built an audience with valid mobile phone numbers you can use for mobile communications, SMS is a perfect channel for running and managing customer loyalty programs or marketing campaigns.

Another loyal CM.com client, Etam, a high-end, luxury French lingerie brand, uses SMS to send their customers exclusive offers, promotions, updates with new merchandise, and information regarding their loyalty point balance.

SMS messages open up endless possibilities for digitally-native brands looking to boost their reach and customer experience.

“SMS allows us to track the SMS delivery rate, which is close to 100%, and the rate of repeat purchases made online and in our stores." Unlike in the past, SMS messaging can be monetized, turning a channel for communication into "a profitable channel." - Jonathan Attali, Chief Digital Officer at Etam 

After implementing SMS, Etam noticed the repeat purchases rate and the number of visits increase when an SMS message gets delivered. Additionally, SMS messages have been instrumental in helping decrease customer churn.

4. Have a Sparkling Clean Database

A successful bulk SMS campaign starts with the database. If you want to send personalized SMS campaigns, you'll need to collect mobile numbers to add to your CRM. 

This means you need customer profiles that are as complete as possible to target them with the content of interest. 

With this, you can send targeted campaigns to the right receivers, for example, based on gender or time since the last purchase. 

But don't underestimate the importance of correct data. Some phone numbers are inevitably entered incorrectly, or consumers give you an invalid number.  

With Number Verifier, you will clean up your database in one simple action. 

This way, you'll send cost-efficient campaigns with a greater reach and a lower no-response rate. More about phone number validation.

5. Interact with Your SMS Campaign

A successfully sent and received message is the basis of your SMS campaign. 

In many situations, you can improve the campaign's value by offering receivers the possibility to react. With two-way messaging, your receivers can reply via SMS, for example, with a question or an answer. 

Special numbers are available to facilitate two-way messaging. Offering this type of interaction contributes to customer involvement and allows you to receive valuable feedback about your brand, product and service. 

Another way to enable interaction is by adding web apps to your communication channels. This allows customers to interact with you via Facebook Messenger. But more about this later.

6. Use Push Notifications with SMS Fallback

Even though SMS is the communication channel with the highest open rate (98% - with most messages read within a few minutes), it's a good idea to look into the possibilities of push notifications. 

By sending push notifications to your app users, you can easily share your message with your target audience for a lower cost.  

Customers or employees who are offline or are not using your app will not receive your push notification but do not fear, that’s where hybrid messaging comes in! 

These people will receive an SMS instead. This push solution with SMS fallback will give you the highest reach for the lowest cost. This can lead to significant savings, which has to be a good thing.

7. Integrate SMS in Your Customer Care with GIN

As stated, there are more channels than just SMS to reach your customers effectively. There are various messaging apps available with which you can interact with customers and improve your customer care. 

Besides SMS, you can add channels like Facebook Messenger and Telegram to your customer care strategy. Thanks to customer contact tool GIN, the customer care tool will combine all your communication channels into one dashboard. 

From there, you can send and receive messages from all available channels, including Facebook Messenger and SMS. Depending on the situation, you can switch between these channels for a seamless customer care experience and enhance interaction with your customer.

8. Data for the Best SMS Campaigns

You've already read about effective ways to improve the success of your SMS campaigns. But to see how successful your campaign is, you need insight into the relevant data. 

With the CM.com SMS Campaigns app, you can see all the important data in one view. 

This overview contains important data, like delivery and conversion rates. With built-in analytics, you can follow the live results and use these insights to optimize your next SMS campaign further. 

Conclusion

The functionalities and features mentioned in this article are just a few of CM.com's functionalities for sending SMS campaigns. Contact us to learn more about the possibilities or send your first SMS campaign right away. 

Please register here to try it for free.