How SMS Marketing Can Increase Customer Loyalty
Persuading people to frequent your business (whether web-based or brick and mortar) is an accomplishment. Turning them into loyal repeat customers is something else entirely. A healthy business has its share of repeat customers, people who not only assure you of a decent, regular cash flow, but also the probability that they are telling their friends about you, and bringing them along.
SMS marketing plays a pivotal role in increasing that customer loyalty. Here are three ways that you can use SMS to keep and increase that devotion. After being enlightened here, take a look another trio of tactics in “3 Ways Your Hotel Can Use SMS Marketing To Increase Loyalty”. Although the article is aimed at hotels, the principles are still sound and applicable to any other business.
Making People Feel Special
Everyone likes to be appreciated, and made to feel special. People like to feel that they are being listened to and taken seriously. Is it any wonder that one of the biggest themes in Dale Carnegie’s classic book “How To Win Friends And Influence People” is to make people feel important?
SMS texting promotions help to create that feeling of specialness, of exclusivity. Clever businesses should create a “special” sign-up list of customers, branding it as some sort of exclusive program or club, that lets people receive SMS texts with special deals, online coupons, or advance word on upcoming events. Yes, we’re talking here about doing something that actually has people going “Yes, please send us what amounts to advertisements on our cell phones!”
Contests
Use the real-time power of SMS texting to hold special contests. This could be something as simple as offering a discount to the first 200 people to respond to the original text, or something more involved like a trivia contest, where the correct answer gets people a free small item or service of some sort. In the latter case, it would be smart to also limit it to the first (number) of correct responses.
One particularly sneaky contest idea is having a promotion that will award a major price discount to the person who submits the most friends to the business for the purpose of SMS/email promotion lists. This way, not only are you holding a contest that gives people a shot at a decent prize, you also end up expanding the size of your SMS texting contact list.
The Power Of Real-Time Engagement
We’ve already established that people like to be treated like human beings and not just a statistic. Let’s take that concept a step further and focus on customer service. Savvy businesses can tap into the live chat potential of SMS marketing by striking up real-time dialogues with customers, helping to answer questions or resolve complaints. Real-time engagement makes the customer feel like someone’s listening to their issues, and consequently it puts them in a better frame of mind to not only stick around, but also to tell their friends about how well they’ve been treated.
Consider this: when people talk to their friends about their experiences with businesses, how many of those stories are positive and how many are negative? Positive stories are less common, and consequently they stick out more. Be a positive story.
There are other means of fostering customer loyalty, but this is a respectable start. Communication is important in any relationship, be it between friends, lovers, or yes, large-scale situations like businesses and customers. Use a good SMS marketing campaign and stand out in the crowd.
