Are you a business looking for an efficient outbound marketing strategy? Then you must deploy a voice and SMS blended campaign to reap the benefits of these two highly personalized marketing channels.
Do you know that 75 percent of your customers would not mind receiving an SMS from your brand? On the other hand, users are increasingly turning to smart speakers to receive notifications and consume audio versions of the online content.
Therefore, using a voice and SMS blended marketing campaign seems like a logical and strategic way forward. Therefore, you must understand the two and how they can work together to complement your brand’s direct marketing campaign.
Voice Marketing Campaign
A voice marketing campaign is a direct marketing strategy that allows your company to use solutions such as the cloud-based predictive dialer, voice broadcast, and ringless voicemails. You can use these cutting-edge tools to talk to potential leads or send them pre-recorded voice messages.
Let us have a brief look at each of these solutions to give you a better idea of how you can reap the benefits of these state-of-the-art digital marketing tools.
- Cloud-Based Predictive Dialer – Now, you can use web-based phones with less hardware. These predictive dialers operate via software on your computers and devices. The dialer can make the calls for you, segregate calls based on defined parameters, and connect human detected incoming calls to an agent.
- Voice Broadcast – You can use this direct marketing solution to call hundreds of customers with a single click. Moreover, it allows your agents to connect with leads genuinely interested.
- Ringless Voicemail – You can send a message directly to your customers’ voicemail without bothering them. Simply use your browser to type a message, and with a few clicks, your message will be on its way without any need for a phone call.
SMS Marketing Campaign
SMS marketing has been a highly efficient and stress-free mode preferred by most consumers. The best part is you can use this marketing channel to target local and international audiences. You can even customize a message to target a select category of customers.
This helps you avoid any frowning faced customers for receiving promotional texts that are of no use.
For example, suppose you are a bank offering low-interest rate mortgages. In that case, you can target an age group such as Millennials to send out an SMS instead of sending a message to a teenager or someone who just started university.
The benefits you get from the SMS marketing campaign are global outreach, customization, no language-barriers, and reaching out to customers proactively without any interruption to their daily lifestyle.
5 Steps to Build a Voice and SMS Blended Campaign
If you are a business wondering how to build an outbound marketing campaign that uses both voice and SMS marketing, here are steps you can follow
1. Knowing Your Audience
The best way to use a voice and SMS blended marketing campaign is to know where, when, and how your target audience will need them. For example, you must know what keywords and keyphrases potential customers will be using to search for products and services similar to yours for an outbound voice campaign.
On the other hand, sending out an SMS will require a bit of research on your end to figure out which category of customers you are targeting and if it is the right time to do so.
For example, if you are a business selling winter wear, you cannot use SMS, voice broadcast, or call customers throughout the year; it has to be around the end of fall.
Moreover, you have to strategically send out an SMS based on demographics such as age, gender, location, etc.
2. Getting Prior Permission
How do you feel about getting unsolicited voice calls or SMS? Where some may pique your interest, others are mostly a nuisance. Why? Because you never asked to receive them, neither did the company get your approval to send you an SMS or call you to promote their products.
Therefore, it is imperative to obtain your target audience’s approval to send a voice or SMS blended marketing message. You can use various methods such as voice broadcasting your message and leaving ringless voicemails to interested customers.
Simply ask them if they would be interested in receiving SMS or voice marketing promotions from your brand.
3. Staying Compliant and Focused
Now that you have your customers’ permission to send out ringless voicemails and SMS blended messages, it is time to be clever about it and not lose them. Do not start bombarding them with promotions that may or may not cater to their needs.
Instead, be concise and only present them an offer they cannot refuse. Maybe send out voluntary information about something important, such as any changes on opening hours during COVID-19 lockdown or any last-minute offers, etc.
Getting it right is very important; not staying on top of your target audiences’ minds will make them forget about you. On the other hand, spamming them with SMS and voice broadcasting marketing promotions will probably lead to your customers unsubscribing or adding your business to their block-list.
4. Analyzing and Adapting
Be a smart marketer and stay on top of your voice and SMS blended marketing campaign’s real-time monitoring and analytics. This will help you gain valuable insight into what does and does not work in order to make the right changes.
This will help you pick the right solutions such as the cloud-based predictive dialer, voice broadcast, and rich- text messages, etc., to improve your chances for return on investment (ROI).
Conclusion
SMS based outbound marketing campaigns have been around for a while and cloud-based voice marketing is here to stay. As a smart business, you must hone both these valuable and efficient channels to create your personalized voice and SMS blended marketing campaign for outbound promotions.
If you are struggling with the idea and do not know who to and where to begin, contact our team today.