Act Now: Creating SMS Calls to Action that Convert
Your call to action is an integral component of your text message marketing efforts. A good call to action can increase your response rates, which in turn helps you achieve your business goals. Conversely, a missing or ineffective call to action can reduce your chances of success. You can create more effective calls to action by following these simple tips.
Use Action Words that Count
The best calls to action use strong action words, such as click, shop, buy, come in, call, and register. By choosing one of these words, you are directing your audience, rather than asking or suggesting they do something. This clearly imparts to your customer exactly what you want him or her to do. When choosing these words, always take the time to ensure you use the ones that accurately convey your message. With text messages, you are limited to only 160 characters, so every word you choose counts.
Use action verbs to get people to do what you want.
If you are unsure which words to use, first consider the goal you wish to achieve with the message, according to Content Marketing Institute. Once you know your intended goal, you can determine what action you want your customers to take with the message. Then, you can choose the best word to convey the desired action.
Create a Sense of Urgency
Your calls to action should also convey a sense of urgency for your customers. Words such as act now, limited time, expires soon, and one-day offer will compel your audience to redeem their offers or take another action quickly. If they do not feel that they need to take action right away, then there is a strong chance they will forget, which can negatively impact your offer redemptions.
Make your customers feel they have to act right away or lose the chance.
Text messaging is an immediate channel. Studies have shown that most people open a message within minutes of receipt. Although this is a strong advantage of group texting, it can also be a disadvantage because people do not necessarily keep and remember texts to act on later. Limited time offers and similar messages that convey urgency encourage people to act right away before they have a chance to put it aside and forget.
Be Clear
When you create your calls to action, you want to be sure you are clear and concise. One common mistake businesses make when developing content is including too much information in one message. Group texting by nature has to be short and sweet, so it is best to choose just one action you want your customers to take and use that information in your call to action. If you have more you want to say, then you can break your message down into multiple texts to send throughout the week or month, rather than try to include everything in one message.
Create Compelling Offers
The most important aspect of developing a strong call to action is to create compelling messages and offers for your customers. You should always include something of real value, and offers should be unique, according to Inc.com. If you are sending out a special offer, then you want to send something that is compelling enough to get your potential customers to take action. Offering something for free is a great way to grab your audience’s attention; whether it is shipping for online retailers, appetizers or desserts for restaurants, or a small trinket for signing up for membership.
People love free things, which is why it is a strong word to include in your CTA.
Additionally, it is a good idea to create different CTAs for every message. You do not want your customers to feel that they are constantly getting the same message, or that they do not need to act right away because they will get a similar offer in the future. Instead, each message you send should have a unique and different CTA to help you capitalize on the benefits of text message marketing. For more tips on CTAs, read this helpful Group Texting blog post.
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