An astounding 6.38 billion people use smartphones every day, and experts predict that number will rise to 7.52 billion in the next five years. With so many people attached to their phones throughout the day, it makes sense that the best way to reach your customers is via SMS texts.
In an age of over-communication, crafting a message that customers will read and respond to is an art form. What’s one trick that will encourage customers to open a text? Personalization. About 72% of consumers will only engage with a message if a company has personalized it to them.
Let’s take a closer look at what personalization is, why it’s important, and how your business can take advantage of this effective technique.
What Is SMS Personalization?
At its most basic, SMS personalization is the process of making the text message you’re sending more relatable to the receiver. You can personalize a message by including the receiver’s name, pronouns, or birthday. Personalization is straightforward and second nature when writing friends and family, but you can apply the same principles when completing personalized mass text messaging campaigns for your business.
While text message personalization is simple when you only have a few customers, creating personalized text messages for thousands of people takes some practice. However, attempting bulk SMS personalization is worth the effort. The average return on investment (ROI) is $20 for every $1 spent, which is why about 90% of marketers are now using personalization tactics.
Why Is Personalization Important?
Apart from an impressive ROI, personalization is important because of what it does for your overall customer experience. More people than ever are seeking interactions with businesses that focus on their needs as individuals. By personalizing your text messages, you can:
- Encourage customers or patients to open and read your messages.
- Receive more responses to appointment confirmation requests.
- Learn more from your customers by receiving answers to your surveys.
Looking for another reason to implement personalized text messages? SMS texts have a 98% open rate, which means that you’ll enjoy more results faster when you concentrate your marketing on personalized SMS texts.
5 Tips for Crafting Personalized Text Messages
Now that you understand how effective personalization can be, let’s talk about how you can use it in your business’s next SMS text campaign. We’ve put together five tips to help you get started.
1. Gather Your Information
Before you start sending out messages, you need to collect some information from your customers to create market segments. The information you gather can include a customer’s name, age, gender, address, birth date, or marital status. You can also include specific facts that are relevant to your business. For example, if you run a health care center with multiple doctors, you can add a patient’s preferred doctor. Once you know who your customers are, you can begin crafting text messages that relate to them.
2. Keep a Consistent Brand Voice
It’s essential to maintain a consistent voice throughout your website copy and email campaigns. However, it’s easy—and common—for companies to send text messages that feel slightly off-brand. An SMS text is informal, and the message needs to be brief, but it should still match your company’s tone and voice. Customers trust your brand, and you want them to associate the text message they just received with the company they love.
3. Focus on Accuracy
When it comes to personalization, accuracy is everything. You can know everything about John Smith, but you’ll miss out on the results you want if you spell his name John Smit in your message. Take special care to ensure your texts are accurate and that they include information you know to be true.
4. Respect Boundaries
When sending out personalized messages to customers, it’s essential to show them that you respect their privacy and boundaries. Your company can illustrate this understanding by spacing out when you send messages and by carefully choosing which personal information you include in those messages. You should use your best judgment to decide what’s appropriate when sending a text message to your customers so that you can encourage their trust and satisfaction.
5. Show You Care
Our last tip is all about showing your customer base that you value them as individuals. You can include special offers, discount codes, or thank you messages in your SMS texts now and then. To make this gesture even more effective, offer discounts on items the customer already enjoys.
Get Support With Your Bulk SMS Campaign
With Red Oxygen, sending personalized SMS texts is quick and easy. Contact us to learn more about how we can help with your text message campaign or start a free trial today!
