Importance of a great messaging platform when choosing an SMS Marketing Provider
If your business has already decided that the next logical progression as far as digital marketing is concerned is to speak to an SMS Marketing provider, here are some proven tips that will help you to make the right decision when deciding on the best company to use.
How it works
SMS marketing has never been as popular as it is right now and that is because of the sheer success in delivery rate that these text messages can achieve for your brand. Not only can you design each message to get across a particular chunk of information but you can also gear them to fit in with your business with the knowledge that your recipients are more than likely to open and read the contents accordingly.
The important parts
As with any type of digital marketing method, there are plenty of providers who will be happy to add you to their list of paying clients. But before you agree to sign on the dotted line, here are the vital qualities that you should be running the brand marketing rule over:
- Ease of use
It is vital that you are able to utilise the messaging platform for your own purposes. There is little point in an over technical portal that offers little in the way of functionality for the marketing team. Short codes and Keywords are extremely useful for reading back contact numbers in a time sensitive fashion.
- Features
When it comes to choosing the best SMS Marketing Provider you should be looking at how many useful features are available on their bespoke platform. Here is a selection of key functions that should be included:
- Immediate Customer replies – This allows your audience to reply with no extra cost
- Opt out codes – This offers an easy opportunity for your customers to exercise their right of refusal
- Customer personalisation – Messages can be tailored to the specific individual – our platform allows us to include customer specific information including names and other personal content in each message.
- Data validation – Intxt excludes land line numbers, dedupes and also removes numbers in the wrong format. Without this you will not be able to ensure that your data is as valid and as clean as possible and you will also be paying for messages that will never be received.
- Auto-replies – These are very important for when your customers decide to opt out, it lets them know that you are on point as far as communication is concerned
- Message scheduling + reporting
Without precise message scheduling software you will find it very hard to reach out to your audience at the most appropriate times. With a large marketing campaign, it is essential that you can send out particular chunks of data to a specific sector of customers at the optimum time. Without real-time reporting included in your package, you will not be able to check on your progress effectively. This feature should be part and parcel of your SMS Marketing Provider’s platform options. Message history reports are an excellent way to take control of your marketing campaign.
By checking that your potential SMS Marketing Provider has these features on an easy to understand platform you can separate the wheat from the chaff and look forward to a new dimension of digital marketing for your brand.