Text Coupons
Create an Interactive SMS Campaign
Text coupons can really ramp up the effectiveness of your database marketing. They’re another reason why you’d be crazy to ignore the potential power of an sms campaign.
What exactly are text coupons?
Coupons are simply marketing text messages that the customer must display to receive a special offer.
The main benefits of coupons are:
- added value for customers
- increased campaign response rate
- advert ‘stickiness’
- response rate can be tracked
- potential to go ‘viral’
- split-testing campaigns
Added value means increased campaign response rate
Coupons like the one above have an actual monetary value to the customer. Plus, if time limited they encourage a response from the customer.
Advert stickiness
If the offer’s attractive enough to the customer, the text will be stored on their phone. So, they’ll have a constant little reminder of your business every time they look at their in-box.
Response rate can be tracked
Just have your staff record the number of coupons displayed. And, interestingly, it is possible to track exactly which customers take up your offer. See below...
The potential to go viral
Text coupons like the one above could easily be forwarded by the original recipients to friends and family. You might actually welcome that! But what if you want to make coupons exclusive to subscribers, or limit numbers?
One solution is to incorporate a unique ID in every text message.
Use merge fields for tracking and precise split-testing
Like the best email software, a good text delivery system such as Txtlocal will have a ‘merge field’ feature. This inserts a unique piece of information of your choosing into every text message sent.
To avoid duplication, rather than use the customer’s name, use the unique number that your CRM system creates for each record, or create your own ID range in Excel before you import the data into the Text message system.
In fact, this offers opportunities to split-test campaigns, or distinguish between different marketing campaigns and establish how each one is performing.
The text campaign is created with a merge field for the ID. Staff have a printout of the spreadsheet with every customer's name, mobile number and unique ID. They simply obtain this information form the customer and check it off against the printout.
This has several benefits:
- the number of coupons offered can be strictly controlled
- you can tell instantly which part of a split-test was more popular
- you can track which specific customers responded to your text (and, if you wish, record that in your database as a segment of customers)
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You know, I actually get excited when I think about the possibilities of using text coupons! They have everything required for successful marketing. Quick, affordable, targeted, trackable, controllable (if you wish), with the chance to offer your customers something of value.
Add to that the average open rate of 95%+ for an sms campaign, and, well, need I say more...?
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We’re just scratching the surface! Take a look at these pages…
To leave text coupons and start at the beginning, visit our database marketing homepage>>
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