Spreading the SMS & MMS Gospel
What’s the sound of one hand clapping? If a tree falls in the woods and there’s no one around to hear it, does it make a sound? Does a text club really exist if it’s not being advertised? These questions have made people reconsider some of life’s foundations for centuries, leading to some unique conclusions that say a lot about their mindset on the world at large. Except for that last one. That’s just something we threw in. It’s still a valid question, though! Just because you’ve created a text club doesn’t mean the public is aware of it. In order to start amassing and maintaining a base of subscribers, you’ll need to stay vigilant when it comes to promoting and informing your customers of its existence. Fortunately, the avenues of advertising for such a service are plentiful and potent, and you won’t need to venture far outside of your comfort zone in order to take advantage of them.
Start with Email, Social Media, and Other Digital Channels
Until your customers take the time to sign up for your text club, you’ll need to let them know about it by updating them through more familiar channels of B2C communication. Email can be a decent baseline for any information you wish to convey to your customers, but don’t shrug off social media if you happen to have a robust number of followers to notify. Proudly announce the launch of your text club by coupling the post with a stylish image that matches your brand’s aesthetic, text that elaborates on the benefits of the club, instructions on how to sign up, and a welcome offer as thanks to those who decide to become a member. Social posts tend to see far greater engagement from users than emails, so making use of your online presence will be pivotal in helping your text club thrive. This isn’t to say that emails don’t have value, though! Marketing through email possesses a number of benefits, like fast creation and deployment times, as well as deep customization options for your messages. When emails and social posts work together, they make for a fierce force of nature.
Use Website Pop-ups the Right Way
Pop-ups can be annoying. We get it. However, the bad mojo associated with them shouldn’t dissuade you from using a pop-up form to encourage text club sign-ups. In most cases, a text club pop-up usually appears after a user arrives at your homepage and prompts them to enter their name, phone number, and email address so they can be added to your growing list of subscribers. When used tactfully and with restraint, pop-ups have an average conversion rate of 3.09%, with the best-performing pop-ups managing to rope in customers at a rate of 9.3%, which isn’t too shabby considering how small of a part they’ll play in your greater marketing strategy. Focus on ensuring your pop-up is simple to fill out whilst still being comprehensive to the user about what they’re signing up for.
Extend Your Efforts to the Real World
If you own and operate at a physical location, you don’t have to rely on virtual promotion alone to bolster your subscriber count! Eye-catching signage tends to work wonders when it comes to encouraging customers to sign up for a text club, as most tend to express interest in the idea when they’re already engaging with your business. If you really want to go the extra mile in the eyes of your audience, you’d be wise to attach a QR code to your signage so you can make becoming a member as effortless as possible. Once scanned through their camera app, the QR code will take them to your custom opt-in landing page, which will fundamentally serve the same purpose as a pop-up would: asking for basic information that serves to guide the customer into your text club. Also, don’t knock the idea of letting your customers know about the text club at checkout! In-person testimonials can be quite effective in convincing a customer to pay your club a visit.
Let Your Customers Do the Talking
One of the best aspects of text club promotion is that a lot of the heavy lifting isn’t done by you most of the time. Most text clubs receive a bulk of their users thanks to word-of-mouth communication, which is spread by the early adopters that you might’ve attracted through the strategies listed above. Word-of-mouth is easily one of the most valuable forces in the marketing space at-large, as a Nielsen report states that 92% of customers believe recommendations from friends and family more than information presented to them through advertising. In the modern age, word-of-mouth communication tends to manifest in a digitally-focused form that we call “word-of-thumb” communication, which can prove to be even more treasured than its spoken word counterpart. After all, information that is conveyed through messaging apps and social media tends to have greater reach than details passed along through speech, and the pace at which it happens also isn’t something to shy away from.
Just like how you would promote any other change made to your business for the sake of benefiting your audience, spreading the word about your text club is essential to its performance. How will your customers become members of a program they don’t know even exists? Given the variety of ways that you could advertise your text club, there’s no reason not to, regardless of whether you run an online-only store or a beloved local pub. Get creative with it! Embrace an omnichannel approach by synergizing your marketing channels. The more unique and focused your posts are, the more inclined a customer will be to give them a shot. More members mean more new types of customers willing to share your offers with their mutuals, which is what will end up propelling your brand to an entirely new level of success.
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