In a world that is oversaturated with marketing content, your brand needs a way to connect directly with your audience—preferably more effectively than your competitors. SMS marketing is a very personal, engaging way to reach both existing and future customers using a communication channel they’re already familiar with.
With bulk SMS messaging, you can send hundreds or even thousands of text messages at once to maximize your reach. Below, we’ll cover everything you need to know about bulk SMS messaging and how to implement it for your business.
What is bulk SMS messaging?
Bulk SMS messaging is the process of sending text messages to a large group of people at once. It’s a time- and cost-effective way to launch an SMS marketing campaign. Some of the biggest benefits of SMS marketing are that you can send a huge volume of messages at once—and even schedule campaigns ahead of time.
Marketers can use these messages for a variety of purposes: announcing new products and services, offering deals, and asking for feedback, just to name a few. Some bulk SMS services allow you to send personalized messages, and others offer two-way SMS, which gives your audience an easy way to respond to what you’ve sent.
SMS messaging is very effective for marketing because text messages have a very high open rate—sometimes as high as 98%! Many consumers already use text messages as part of their daily communication with friends and family, so receiving SMS marketing messages feels very natural.
When compared with other forms of marketing, SMS text messages tend to feel more personal and user-friendly. They’re quick and easy to read, and responding to them is very intuitive.
How to set up a bulk SMS campaign
As with any other marketing campaign, it’s important to be strategic when planning your mass SMS messages. Here’s how to set up a bulk SMS campaign that resonates with your audience.
Choose the right messaging service
To send out text messages en masse, you’ll need to use a professional bulk messaging service. These tools automate many aspects of SMS marketing to help you reach your audience more efficiently.
There are many different messaging services on the market, so you’ll need to compare multiple options and find the one that is the best fit for your needs. Consider the features each service offers:
- Do they offer two-way messaging or personalization options?
- What type of customer support options are available?
- What do their scheduling tools look like?
Evaluating these features will help you identify which services best align with your marketing goals.
Next, consider how the messaging service integrates with your other marketing tools. Ideally, you’ll be able to automatically transfer your existing contact list from another app to your messaging service. On top of that, it’s helpful for your texting service to integrate with your existing analytics tools so you can evaluate the success of each campaign.
Pricing is also a key factor to keep in mind when making this decision. Consider which services will fit into your budget and the value they offer. It may be worthwhile to spend more money on your bulk to get access to more advanced features.
Craft your bulk text messages
Once you’ve decided which service you want to use, the next step is to start writing your bulk text messages. As with any of your marketing assets, these messages need to be engaging and reflect your brand voice.
When compared to email marketing or social media marketing, SMS messages are much shorter and more informal. Because of this, it’s important to keep messages concise and simple. If your message is too long or complex, your recipients might not read the whole thing. Don’t bury the lede—make it clear why you’re writing from the beginning.
Links can be long, so to help with brevity, you can use Bitly’s URL shortener for SMS to create short branded links that will fit in your text messages. This way, your messages can stay in one neat message versus sending as a series of (possibly out-of-order) messages instead.
Even though they’re short, you can still include plenty of personality in these messages. Keep the tone of your SMS messages consistent with the rest of your branding. Since texting is a very informal medium, you can keep things lighthearted and even include emojis. However, you should still keep things professional. Be sure to proofread your messages before sending them to remove any spelling or grammatical errors.
When possible, add personalized touches to each text message. This could be as simple as adding the recipient’s name, or as complex as segmenting your campaign based on demographics or position in the sales funnel. Including these personal touches helps the recipient feel valued.
Finally, include a strong call to action (CTA) to create a sense of urgency, encouraging the recipient to take the next step with your business. This could be making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or completing a survey, for example.
Build out a solid contact list
One of the most challenging parts of bulk SMS marketing is building your contact list ethically. Customers must consent when sharing phone numbers and other pieces of personal information. Be sure to comply with the data-sharing laws in your region and follow any industry-specific best practices to keep your business out of hot water.
There are many ways to get customer mobile numbers for your text marketing campaign. One way is to have customers sign up for exclusive SMS updates and offerings through your website or email marketing campaigns. If you take this route, use Bitly to shorten the links for your sign-up page so they fit neatly into your marketing materials—and to make those links trackable.
Both shortened links and QR Codes are fully trackable with Bitly. You can use Bitly Analytics to determine which links and QR Codes get the most engagement and generate the most sign-ups.
Schedule and send your mass text messages
Now that you’ve built your list and written your text messages, the next step is to send them! Bulk SMS software helps automate this part of the process. Ideally, you should use a short code number to send your messages, which is only five or six digits. This will help you send more messages at once.
The timing of your text messages is very important, so be sure to schedule them in advance. Messages should go out during the day or early evening when your customers are awake. Observe which times and days of the week generate the most engagement and use this information when scheduling future campaigns.
Monitor and analyze the results
After you send your messages, use Bitly and other analytics tools to monitor the performance of your campaign. With Bitly Analytics, you can track:
- Clicks and scans over time
- Clicks and scans by referrer
- Top-performing links (by number of clicks and scans)
- Clicks and scans by location (city-level)
Using third-party analytics tools (like Google Analytics) alongside Bitly can give you even more insights into your customer behavior, including click-through rates from SMS links. This can help you identify which text messaging strategies are most effective so you can build future marketing efforts around them, setting your campaigns up for success.
Examples of integrating SMS marketing into the broader marketing mix
SMS marketing offers limitless possibilities for your marketing campaigns. Here’s how to integrate SMS messages into your broader marketing strategy.
Sending promotions at scale + reducing the cost of SMS
SMS marketing can help you send out thousands of messages and links to customers around the world. By using a bulk SMS platform, you can send huge volumes of text messages at once for large-scale campaigns.
Bitly’s powerful API helps customers send short links at high volumes to customers. This is key in SMS marketing, where every character counts. Long URLs just won’t fit in an SMS message and can make your campaign look less professional. Short, branded links fit seamlessly in your SMS messages for a better customer experience. By shortening your links, you can also save on per-character SMS costs and keep your SMS campaign within your budget.
Powering SMS-based appointment reminders
If your business is appointment-based, you can use SMS messages to remind customers of their upcoming commitments and reduce your no-show rates. This strategy is often used in the healthcare industry, where scheduling is crucial to successful operations.
However, the healthcare industry also has very strict patient privacy and data security laws to adhere to, so it’s important to partner with a secure link management solution. Bitly doesn’t store personally identifiable information, making it an ideal choice for short link creation for this use case.
Re-engaging customers who abandon their carts
Online cart abandonment is very common, with average cart abandonment rates hitting 70%. If your customers frequently abandon their online shopping carts, you can use SMS messages to re-engage them.
An SMS solution is a great way to get customers back into your sales funnel when they leave your site without completing their checkout. A gentle, friendly reminder is sometimes all customers need to make a final purchasing decision!
Tracking delivery services
Today’s consumers rely heavily on delivery services when purchasing products. Delivery tracking gives them peace of mind and lets them know exactly when their purchase is on the way. You can use SMS messages to send customers delivery tracking updates.
Include a short link in your message that connects to an interactive online tracking page. This is an easy way to delight customers and it can also help you resolve any delivery issues quickly.
Leverage bulk SMS for enhanced communication and strategy
Bulk SMS is a powerful marketing tool that can help you connect directly with customers using a platform they use the most—their smartphones. For best results, use short links in your SMS marketing to connect each message to your website without creating bulky texts that split into multiple messages.
With Bitly, it’s easy to create short URLs for your SMS marketing campaigns. Bitly’s bulk upload feature, available with paid Bitly plans, simplifies the process of creating short links on a massive scale. This makes us a great partner for even your most ambitious SMS initiatives!
Find your perfect Bitly solution and let us support your next bulk SMS campaign!