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• How Can Text Message Marketing Help Me?
• The Benefits for Your Business
• Customizing Your Campaign
• Best Practices for Text Messages
• Optimization Tips
• Measuring Your Text Message Marketing Success
• To Sum It All Up

How many hours do you spend each day on your marketing? And we mean all of it. Flyers, social media, graphics, emails, website… the list goes on.

It’s likely several hours minimum. And chances are that this isn’t sustainable, which brings us here.

Now let us ask you another question. How long does it take you to send a text message? A few seconds, maybe a minute at most? It’s no wonder that we use them often. Nearly every person has a phone and uses text messaging (check!), text messages are quick and to the point (another check!), and most people check a text message within 90 seconds of receiving one (and check!).

Text messaging is often thought of for personal use only, but as a business owner, you can also reap the rewards.

This efficient and simple strategy can help save time by streamlining communication with customers, improving response rates, and eliminating the need for manual processes like emails and customer calls. With our ultimate guide to text messaging for business marketing, you’ll soon be wondering why it took so long to adopt this convenient method of customer outreach! Everything from setting up a campaign to analyzing results is covered here – let’s begin exploring how texting has become the top choice for modern organizations.

How Can Text Message Marketing Help Me?

Text message marketing, or mobile marketing, is one of the most effective methods of digital marketing in today’s world. What business doesn’t want to be able to easily keep in contact with customers or leads through a quick and short message? This form of mobile communication allows businesses to easily inform customers about new promotions, upcoming events, and pretty much any info you want to send to your audience at the touch of a button. Text message marketing gives businesses the advantage of having direct access to the mobile devices of their customers; creating a much more efficient way for consumers to interact with each other. With its proven success track record, mobile marketing is definitely something that should be part of your overall marketing strategy if you don’t like to waste time.

The Benefits for Your Business

As we said at the beginning of this post, marketing is time-consuming. With so many platforms to advertise on, how do you prioritize your most active one? That is if you know which one truly is the most active. But nearly three-quarters of the world will be using only their smartphones for engagement by 2025. On top of that, the majority of people check their phones within 90 seconds of receiving a message! So if you’re still unsure about how your business could benefit from text message marketing, think about all that time you spent creating flyers and sending emails when you could have sent a text message in only a few seconds…

“Time isn’t a huge issue for me”

What about money? The average flyer costs about $1.07 each from Office Depot. Know how much it costs to send a text message? 3 cents.

No one loves doing math, but we believe this part is important:

Not only is important to note that flyers have a 1-5% engagement rate, but their cost to send them out to each individual is nearly 35 times the cost of text message marketing.

So not only are you connecting with customers within seconds of sending a message, but you’re also cutting back dramatically on costs. With text messages, businesses can easily create a personalized experience, save time in gradually connecting with their customers, and save money in the process. Text messages are short, but they can pack quite the punch when it comes to establishing a positive working relationship with potential leads or existing customers.

Customizing Your Campaign

If you’re interested in starting a text message marketing campaign for your business, we’re here to help. You can create a custom campaign that fits your needs, and manage it from start to finish. Whether you’re looking to run a QR code contest, or simply let your customers know about your monthly specials, youve got it covered. And even if you don’t know how to incorporate text message marketing into your current strategy, Rob our lead marketer can sit down with you in a 1:1 to find the perfect campaign to fit your unique brand and business goals.

Best Practices for Text Messages

If you decide that you want to do your own messaging and stay personally engaged with your audience, how do you know what to send? What hours are most effective for maximum reach? What should you even say when messaging as a business? Let’s break down some of the best practices before you start.

When it comes to text message marketing, industry restrictions and business hours should always be taken into account. It’s important to keep up with the industry-specific regulations and laws that pertain to messaging in order to reduce the risk of a penalty. Furthermore, sending messages within normal business hours is always a good practice to give your audience a more than welcomed distraction from their typical nine-to-five.

When crafting messages for your customers, be sure to maintain a friendly yet informative tone as if you were talking to a friend. It’s a text message after all, so keeping it casual is a great way to show that you’re a real person, not just some company face. In this way, you can create an inviting experience that connotes trustworthiness while providing helpful information that they can actually use.

Optimization Tips

It’s no secret that text messaging campaigns can be a great tool for businesses to connect with their customers and keep them informed about products, promotions, and updates. To maximize the effectiveness of your text message marketing campaigns, it’s important to keep your deals fresh and up to date. Make sure to use compelling offers that capture your customers’ attention and incentivize them to stay engaged with your brand.

Additionally, don’t be afraid to get creative with your messages try out different formats like polls or quizzes – anything that will spark conversation between you and your audience. Keep in mind that these kinds of strategies all go hand in hand and help make up a successful text message marketing campaign.

Measuring Your Text Message Marketing Success

Utilizing text message marketing is an efficient way to measure the success of your campaigns. With increased foot traffic as a result of increased customer engagement, track metrics like increased conversions, sales, and loyalty rewards. Specifically, use SMS marketing to gauge how successful doubling down on promotional campaigns can be and how that ties to increased revenue. There are many opportunities for businesses to gain more insight into their customer’s behaviors when it comes to opting in and out of content, creating additional touchpoints with customers to gauge how well your customers respond (e.g. increasing your contact list through new opt-ins).

Our dashboard breaks down the analytics in real time and has time parameter settings so you can see where you were a month, or even a year ago. Keeping track of your success can also help you optimize your messaging even faster so that you can create the perfect campaign with a few simple clicks.

To Sum It All Up

All in all, text message marketing is an incredibly effective and convenient way for your business to reach out to your customers and potential customers. This type of marketing strategy is not only trackable, but it also provides benefits like convenience, mobile visibility, speed, and personalization. Not only that, but setting up a text message campaign can be done quickly, and without requiring technical skills. With the right approach in mind and the best practices followed, you can measure success with metrics like open rates and response rates to track if your messaging is effective or not. Now that you know the importance of using text message marketing as part of your marketing plan, book a call with us and Rob can show you how text message marketing can benefit you!

Check out our library of tips and tricks for mobile marketing!

The post Text Message Marketing: The Ultimate Time Saver appeared first on StreamWerks Media.

Being a small business is a blessing as well as a curse. More people are looking to local shops in an attempt to keep income within their community. While the incentive is noble, it’s hard to compete with massive companies like Amazon or Wish, where products come nearly dirt cheap. Additionally, everyone knows their brand. So how do you keep up with these large competitors? The answer lies within your marketing strategy.

In the modern age of technology, it’s essential for small businesses to be aware of the various ways they can scale their business. QR codes have slowly become the most effective way for businesses to generate leads. Whether you want to take prospects to a product’s landing page, or opt-in form for lead magnets, these codes are the ultimate tool for any small business owner.

QR codes are simple black-and-white square images that you scan with a smartphone camera. When scanned, they direct users to web pages of various kinds. From menus to contact pages, QR codes are the all-in-one Call to Action. While their uses are nearly endless, maybe you’re unsure how to advertise your QR code, or don’t even know what a QR code is and how it works.

This blog post will cover what a QR code is and how it can help small business owners generate leads and increase revenue.

What is a QR Code?

A Quick Response (QR) code is a two-dimensional barcode that stores data that can be read by smartphones or other devices with cameras. Once scanned, the device will direct the user to a website to learn more about your offers, sign up for newsletters, or land on your contact page.

For example, scanning a QR code at a restaurant may take you to its menu page on their website or app. For your business, you can lead users directly to your contact page, or customer testimonials to build your credibility.

Why Should I Use QR Codes?

QR codes are an effective way to generate leads. The more leads, the higher your revenue. These codes guide your customer to your Call to Action without having to type in a long URL in their browser.

Did you know nearly 3/4 of the world will use just their smartphones to access the internet by 2025? That’s only 2 years from now! Catering to this mode of product and service searching will only widen your lead list. Additionally, QR codes track the exact number of people who have scanned your code. That means accurate metrics and higher success rates.

How Can Small Businesses Use QR Codes?

Small business owners can use QR codes in many ways! You can print them out on flyers, menus, posters, etc., and place them around their store or restaurant. You can also send them in emails or place them on social media posts. This allows customers easy access to promotional offers without having to navigate through multiple steps.

Additionally, you can use QR code contests to further promote customer engagement with your brand! Learn how to generate more leads with QR Code Scan-to-Win campaigns.

Small businesses may also want to consider using dynamic QR codes that are customizable and trackable – this way business owners know exactly how many people are scanning each code and what action those scanners take after doing so (e.g., visiting the website). This information is invaluable as it allows business owners to analyze customer behavior to optimize their marketing strategy accordingly.

Finally, small businesses should always make sure that any page linked from their QR code is mobile friendly – if not, customers won’t have an enjoyable experience and may opt out of learning more about your product/service altogether.

Optimizing Your Code to Generate More Leads

Once you have created a custom code for your business, there are several things you can do to optimize it for maximum engagement from potential customers.

For example, make sure that your code is placed prominently and clearly visible on all marketing materials such as flyers and brochures; this will encourage more people to scan it!

You can also promote the use of your code on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter by providing incentives such as discounts or special offers when users scan it. This is a very effective way to drive more traffic back to your website!

Not convinced? Learn more about how this customer used QR codes to generate more leads and increase their revenue for Valentine’s Day!

The fact of the matter is…

your competitors are using QR codes. Staying up to date with the biggest marketing trends is how your marketing strategy can stay relevant amidst all the competition. We can agree that QR codes are an effective way for small businesses to generate leads and drive traffic back to their websites.

By creating custom codes that link directly to specific content on their websites (such as product pages or customer reviews), businesses can make it easy for potential customers to quickly access relevant information about their company in one click—without ever having to leave their smartphones!

Additionally, optimizing the placement and promotion of these codes can help maximize engagement from visitors who scan them—a smart way for businesses looking for an edge over their competition!

Understanding and analyzing your consumers’ behaviors and catering to their needs helps you optimize your marketing strategy accordingly! With these tips in mind, start implementing QR codes into your marketing strategy today and reap the benefits now!

The post Generate More Leads and Increase Revenue for Small Businesses with QR Codes appeared first on StreamWerks Media.

QR Codes have made an incredible comeback in the last few years. Starting as a simple tool to track automobile parts during the assembly process, QR codes have vastly improved their use and design. Nowadays, they serve as a simple scannable code that takes customers directly to websites, menus, and many other sources for your business.

But how do you know when to use them, or how to use them effectively? We’ll explain the best strategies for using QR codes in 2023, and why they’re the perfect marketing multitool for your small business.

The Comeback Kid

Quick response (QR) codes have only recently been adopted into everyday life, despite their continued existence over the last 30 years. Before COVID-19, QR codes were actually on the decline. While big tech companies like Apple were including QR code scanning software in their phones in 2017, the rest of the consumer world had little understanding of what they were, or what they did. However, the pandemic in 2020 revolutionized their contactless and quick use. With sanitation protocols and social-distancing measures, businesses quickly adopted the QR code into their day-to-day use, and eventually their marketing strategy. And there’s no sign of it slowing down. In 2020 alone, the global QR Code Labels market was valued at $916.7 million and is expected to grow to $1268.1 million by 2026.

Using QR Codes in Your Mobile Marketing Strategy

As a small business, you’re likely running several positions throughout the course of the day, and every minute of it counts. From running registers during the day to budgeting at night, how do you find time to create an effective marketing plan? With Streamwerks Media, you can use QR Code Scan-to-Win contests to build your contact lists, offer customers limited-time discounts that go directly to their phones, create one-scan event sign-ups, and bridge the gap between your in-store and online promotion. The best part? You don’t need any advanced tech knowledge to use them. Even better, Streamwerks Media will meet with you to understand your company’s vision, create the perfect marketing campaign, and execute it.

QR Code Scan-to-Win Campaigns

These simple contests are great for engaging new and existing customers. As shoppers scan your QR code, they are taken to a form to enter their information for the contest. As their contact information is uploaded to your contact list, they simultaneously get a notification that they’ve entered your contest. QR Code Scan-to-Win campaigns are great for enticing customers to sign up for your small local business with the chance of winning an exciting prize. This is the perfect segway to encourage them to join your loyalty program, and get future offers that you can send to their phones later down the road.

Limited-time Discounts

Who doesn’t love getting an immediate coupon while shopping? By advertising your QR code in your store, or on your social media, customers can scan these and get an auto-response text including a limited-time discount at your store. By offering a coupon that can be used immediately, but only within a certain number of days, you can push shoppers to make those quick purchases.

Event Sign-Up

This tactic will make any business owner squeal with glee. Paper classes and event sign-ups can bring a lot of stress. Not only do you need people to visit your store location to write down their information, but interpreting handwriting can also be a challenge when going back through the list at the end of the day. Long gone are the days of retyping endless email addresses and awkward group responses to your mass emails!

With QR code class sign-ups, you can avoid the chaos and confusion leading up to your grand event. As customers scan your code, they are directed to your web form to enter their information. The Streamwerks platform categorizes that data and enters them into a contact list for that event. When the day for your class or event finally arrives, you can send class information and instructions directly to your customers’ phones. What if you have multiple classes or events going on around the same time? Click here to learn more about QR Code Class Sign Ups!

Connecting Your Online and Offline Marketing

With the ever-changing technological world, there are a lot of platforms to advertise your business through. Aside from social media, in-store graphics and signage can also be time-consuming. But putting it all together? We know most small business owners reading this are already sweating at the idea of somehow collaging it all together. QR codes are an understatedly simple way to bridge the gap between your online and offline marketing. QR codes are most effective when used in conjunction with other marketing channels. For example, you can include a QR code on your print advertisements and on your website. This will help you reach more customers and increase the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.

A New Year for New Growth

Advertising your small business shouldn’t have to be hard. But now that you’ve seen the many ways QR codes can be used, is it worth incorporating them into your small business marketing? Integrating a new system may seem intimidating, but the rewards are well worth it. In addition to being an easy transition to upgrade your business’s technology, you are saving far more time spent on your advertising. What’s more, most shoppers own a smartphone, making QR codes easy to use for a larger audience to grow your customer base. And finally, there are many ways in which QR codes can help your small business marketing an absolute success in the new year.

That’s a lot of information, but still not sure where to begin? Give us a call! We’ll sit down with you to learn what you want to accomplish for your company, create a plan, and do the work for you.

Scan the QR code for a chance to win 1000 free messages for your new year marketing campaign!

The post QR Code Strategies Every Small Business Should Follow in 2023 appeared first on StreamWerks Media.