Why Text Message Marketing May Not Be Working For Your Campaign
If you’ve been using sms marketing services like RoboCent for your campaign, but just don’t feel like it’s a great fit for your campaign, you’ve come to the right place. Text message marketing, as with most things, is a give-and-take gimmick. You’ll benefit from what you put into it; therefore, if you aren’t fully utilizing services, analyzing your audience, or correctly formulating text messages, then you won’t see positive results.
Analyzing mistakes made in a marketing campaign is the key to winning.
In today’s blog, we’re going to outline some ways your sms marketing campaign might be dysfunctional, and some ways you might be able to fix it.
1. You’re Not Keeping Your Campaign Fresh and New for Constituents
When users opt in to your text campaign, they’re giving you their trust. Through an opt-in, they’re setting an expectation for you: that your text campaign is going to make their demonstrated interest worthwhile. Whether it’s through exclusive campaign updates, the opportunity to RSVP to different campaign events, learn more about the election and even more, you need to be using your campaign text messages to engage voters. Don’t become complacent in your campaign journey. Just because you’re using a service that 70% of customers have approved of doesn’t mean your campaign can afford to slack.
Texting users with a purpose is always the answer to keeping them engaged, plus keeping your text content fresh and interesting. Whether it’s an update on the state of the political race you’re running, a statement from your candidate, an announcement for an event or fundraiser, make sure you’re texting new information. Becoming repetitive with your sms messages can easily land your campaign on the blacklist for text campaigns, and make people consider your campaign as spam.
That’s truly what it all boils down to: don’t tow the line between being a spam service and a useful digital marketing tool. Using your text messages as an actual means for communication and interaction is what will keep voters on your side, not unintentional spam messages without any ounce of purpose or direction. With having fresh ideas floating around for your text campaign will also come marketing ideas for your political campaign as a whole; all in all, make sure not to be lazy when concerning the more unconventional aspects of marketing.
2. You Aren’t Drafting Your Messages To Be Compelling Enough
As we mentioned in our previous blog How to Compose a Compelling SMS message for Political Marketing, keeping people interested in your text messages doesn’t just mean that you need new and fresh ideas. It also means that you need to be intentional about your wording and brand voice when drafting your political text messages. Conceptualization is one virtue, execution is another. Being able to smoothly convey your point via text message is an extremely valuable skill. If your campaign isn’t receiving excellent feedback, it might be because of the wording in your text messages.
A couple of do’s and don’ts regarding text message wording and diction are rather quite simple. Be professional when drafting text messages. Always use correct punctuation, and try not to pander. Pandering in text messaging might include using too much slang, using emoticons or emojis, or even being too aggressive with your messages. Appealing to the general public always requires authenticity, and pandering does not an authentic politician make.
Being compelling means using calls-to-action, as well. This is one of the best ways to make your messages as engaging as possible, and it all stems from inclusive and active wording. Some great calls-to-action include links to other campaign related websites; this engages the user in a space beyond their inbox, thus making your text message purposeful. Adding the phrase “click here for more information” is a great way to make your individual message interesting.
Personalizing text messages is also another way to make them compelling. Finding out the particular user’s name, and then inserting it into text messages that your campaign sends to them will always spark attention and feedback. Drafting messages to make them appeal to the individual will garner trust and interest. It’s just another way to foster and maintain the connection. At the end of the day, all that people want is a connection, and the feeling that a real person is on the other end of the text message. Drafting your messages to be personal is a sure fire way to accomplish this task, and will earn you a more successful sms campaign.
For more tips regarding your sms message script, consult our script tactics page to write the perfect text message for whatever type of campaign you’re running.
3. You Haven’t Been Using Analytics To Your Advantage
Most text message marketing services will allow for the analysis of phone usage times and frequencies, helping you narrow down a hot spot for when is best to text and who is best to text at that time. If you’re not achieving the results that you aim for, that may be because you’re not utilizing these statistics that your service may provide for you. Even if your text message marketing service does not give you analytics to help plan and craft text messages, there are plenty of sources online that can help your campaign figure out where and when is best to text.
Just as with drafting the words of a text message, planning time and frequency of text messages can be the make or break of your text message marketing journey. If you’re texting someone too early in the morning or too late at night, chances are they’re not in the mood to interact with your campaign. If you hit them during work hours, they’re too busy to bother with your attempts at communication.
Making sure to utilize these tools at your disposal will guarantee feedback. Sometimes marketing teams think that they can wing it and advertise without using analytics, but this is usually a grave mistake. Always base the actions of your text campaign off of statistics and raw data, because it’s the only sure fire way to know that you’re truly reaching your audience.
4. You’re Not Targeting Your Market
With an sms messaging campaign, especially one that’s organized through RoboCent, you should have the ability to track and target people within your target demographic. When initially texting people, you’ll have the opportunity to find out key demographic info like age, gender, socioeconomic status, race or ethnicity, nationality, location, political affiliation, and many other vital elements that will be crucial to your approach to marketing.
If you aren’t experiencing the results that you want or deserve, then there’s a chance that you might not be using this valuable tool and information to your advantage. Knowing your audience-- not just their phone usage, but their plight as an American citizen can help you immensely when reaching out to them. You might have an idea of how you’d like to reach out to your audience, but the point you attempt to make is moot when you don’t convey it correctly.
Using overly heightened language to a less educated demographic can lose you votes and interest. Texting about issues that aren’t important to your subscribers can lose you votes and interest. Texting your market at times when that particular demographic isn’t available: like weekend nights for young people or late at night for older folk, can lose you votes and interest.
Understanding the identity of your audience is crucial to winning. You’ll want to nail down this interest in demographic not only as a powerful marketer, but also as a powerful and change-making politician. Understanding every aspect of your audience’s life, from the big things like gender and race, down to the little things like the way they use their phones will help you appeal to them.
If your text campaign isn’t seeing the results you desire, it might be because you need to take a second look at this.
5. You’re Not Dreaming Big Enough
Many campaigns run into this issue, especially smaller ones. Setting up a text message campaign may seem like a tall task, and may even seem not worth it to your campaign. We assure you, however, that it’s very well worth it. Campaigns large and small benefit from text message marketing, and it won’t work for you if you don’t go all in. Marketing as much as possible to as many people as possible, using as many tools and statistics as possible will surely be the defining factor of your win.
All in all, if text message marketing isn’t currently working for you, you might want to reconsider the ways in which you’re using it, and even consult a professional. RoboCent is here to help, so don’t be afraid to use our services to completely optimize your campaign. You’ll get from text message marketing what you put into it, as with most things in a political campaign. Don’t be afraid to try something new every now and again, know your audience, and know when to accept the extra help that services will provide you.