Text messaging isn’t just for people to chat with their friends, it’s a powerful business tool as well. Text message marketing is a quickly-emerging type of communication for businesses across a variety of industries, and the retail sector is one of them. Retailers, from nationwide chains to small boutiques, are adding text messaging to their marketing plans and seeing great results from it. Let’s take a closer look at how to make this type of marketing effective for your retail business.

Why Use Text Messaging for Retail Businesses?

First, let’s look at why text messaging is such an effective marketing tool for retailers. Some of the top reasons are:

• Customers don’t need to download a new app or interface to receive messages from retailers.
• Nearly everyone has a smartphone and typically has it with them at all times, making it quick and easy for customers to read incoming messages.
• Many consumers prefer to receive texts from businesses rather than phone calls or emails.
• Text messages can be read at the recipient’s leisure.

4 Tips For Text Messaging Success

If your business is ready to embrace text messaging marketing, there are some important things to consider so that you use this type of communication in the most effective way and don’t annoy your customers. These four tips will help you ensure a successful text message marketing campaign:

1 – Offer An Easy Opt-Out

If people don’t want to receive your text message offers, you can salvage the situation without repelling your customer or losing their business altogether. Offering an easy opt-out option lets customers unsubscribe from future texts quickly and effectively. If you make it difficult for them to stop receiving texts or require them to go through an elaborate process to do so, they’re likely to get frustrated and see your business in a negative light.

2 – Be Mindful of the Time

Most people don’t appreciate being woken up in the middle of the night with a marketing text message, and they’re also not likely to act on your promotions or special offers at that time either. Make sure you automate your text messages to be sent to your customers during regular business hours to prevent being a nuisance and to make sure you’re reaching them at a time when they’re able to take action.

3 – Send Valuable Offers and Info

Don’t leave your customers asking, “so what?” after they receive a generic text from your business. Instead, send a direct message about an upcoming flash sale or an easy-to-use offer code that they can apply to their next purchase. They will be more likely to remain on your text message subscription list if you send messages that add value to their lives and improve their shopping experience.

4 – Keep It Short and Sweet

Rather than blowing up your customers’ phones too frequently, or drowning them in overly-wordy messages, make a point of keeping things concise. This means cutting directly to the chase as well as sending messages sporadically rather than communicating too often and risking becoming an annoyance.

Text message marketing is a great way to share upcoming sales, special offers, and subscriber discounts with your customers. Sending text messages allows you to easily communicate without being a bother to your customers, as long as you follow the steps to do it right. Strategic text messages can have a great effect on your business, so make sure to  apply these annoyance-free tips to your next text marketing campaign for maximum success.