Hi.
My name is Derek Johnson with tatango.com.
Today I'm gonna be reviewing one of our free text message marketing templates, which you
can download.
Whether you use Tatango or not, it's a great template for text message marketing.
If you wanna download it, the link to download it will be in the description below.
So, this template is for an SMS offer.
An SMS offer is, essentially, what you send to your subscribers, usually in mass.
So if you have 100,000 subscribers, you're gonna send this offer to your customers.
Now, we created this template because we wanted to make sure that before you click "Send"
on your text message, you make sure that everything is in place, you're not forgetting something.
And if you're brand new to text messaging, this may help craft your first text message
offer.
So let's jump right into it.
This one actually is a real simple, one page template.
As you can see, it's a mobile phone, and this would be the text message that is received
by the customer or customers.
So the first thing you wanna include in this text message, and very, very, important, is
the business or organization name right up front.
As you can see here, this is Bob's Burgers.
It's right up front.
The reason we do this, and the reason we recommend our clients always put the brand name up front,
is because in a lot of phones, they preview the text message.
So that means there will only be a few words that will be available to the customer when
they receive the text message.
And to see the rest of the text message, they have to click to view more, or the full message.
So we always recommend putting the brand name right up front, so that, even if the phone
preview is only a few words, the words are the brand name.
So the customer knows exactly who's text messaging them and they think, "Okay.
I know this brand.
I feel confident in clicking on this message and seeing the full message."
You never want a consumer kinda doubting, you know, who's text messaging them and then
they may not even click on the message, which then doesn't give your brand the opportunity
to market to them.
So, the next portion here is the offer.
So, this is what you're actually giving the consumer.
For most text message marketing, you're going to be sending some type of offer.
A percentage off, a dollar off, you know, some type of promotion, a sale.
This is where the offer goes.
Now, I also recommend this go at the start of the message with the business name.
So usually, business name, and then the offer.
And the reason is the exact same reason as the business name, it kinda goes up near the
front, is if they're previewing the message on the mobile phone, you want the business
name, so they know who it is from, and then you want the offer right away.
Because, you know, let's say it's "Bob's Burgers.
Get 20% off," and then it cuts off the message and you have to click to see more.
That's enticing enough for most consumers to click on the message.
Now, if it said something like, you know, "Hey.
Show this text message to redeem and the expiration date is this," at the start of the message,
I'd be like, "I don't even know who that brand is.
It doesn't sound that enticing to open.
I'm gonna skip over that text message."
So always put the brand name right up front, and then secondly, the offer.
Now, the third component of this, which you can see here, is the offer fine print.
I see a lot of people and a lot of brands, for some reason, they get this right on billboards,
print, radio, television, Facebook, even, ads.
They say, "Get 20% off your purchase when you spend more than $20."
I see a lot of brands, for some reason, throw all of that knowledge and kind of learning
out the window when it comes to text messaging, and they'll put the fine print before the
offer.
And that's never a good way to do it.
So if that were the case, it would read, "When you spend more than $20, get 20% off your
purchase."
The reason, number one, you don't wanna do this is because, let's say he was previewing
the message and there's only a few words in the preview.
It would read, "Bob's Burgers.
When you spend more than, you know, 20," I'd be like, "Oh, that sounds like a lot of money.
I'm not interested.
You haven't even given me anything."
That's why it's always important to lead with the offer.
"Bob's Burgers.
Get 20% off your purchase," and then you're essentially kinda trailing off, you know,
"When you spend more than $20."
That's kinda the fine print.
Don't worry about that.
Be really enticed by the offer, which is that 20% off purchase.
Now, in a text message, you only get 160 characters, so you gotta keep this, you know, as tight
as possible.
The next component is the redemption instructions, as you can see here.
This is important, because if you just tell people, "20% off your purchase when you spend
more than $20 at Bob's Burgers," people are nervous and they're cautious of how to redeem
things.
They don't want to go to a restaurant and be turned down because they're presenting
a coupon the wrong way.
Maybe this is an online coupon.
Maybe this is a "show the waitress."
Maybe this isn't "show the waitress," maybe you need to, you know, show the front desk
before you get seated.
Give as much detail as you can, before somebody actually has to go and redeem that coupon
and figure it out for themselves.
So this could be a "show text to redeem."
This could be, "Click on this link and then show the link," or whatever is on that mobile
website.
There's so many different ways to redeem a mobile coupon.
You could even just ask your server.
There is some options, too.
They put a coupon code in there.
I usually recommend, even if you put a coupon code in there, do you tell the server what
the coupon code is?
Or do you show the phone and they read what the coupon code is?
So make it very, very obvious for the consumer, the person receiving the text message, on
how they're supposed to actually present the text message to get this fine offer.
The last one is expiration date.
This is pretty common for any kind of couponing-type marketing plan that you're doing.
You always want to have an expiration date.
Number one, it protects your business, so you're not having people come in two, five
years later with the coupon and expecting it to be redeemed.
Second, I think, is even more important, is it increases people's interest in the coupon
because it's a limited time offer.
So, usually with text messaging, you're gonna get 99% open rates.
I think 90% are opened within three minutes.
It's just ridiculous statistics.
Everybody gets the message and they get it right away.
So you want to plan for that when planning for the expiration date in the message.
So you don't wanna make it 30 days out.
You wanna make it, maybe, five days out.
Something where, you know, there's enough incentive in there maybe to jump in the car
today or tomorrow or on the way back from work tomorrow.
But you don't want to extend it too far out, where they forget about the message.
Because you also have to remember that they're gonna get messages from their family, their
friends, and all of those messages are gonna push down the message from Bob's Burgers.
So, you know, kinda keep that in mind when planning out how long a text message promotion
can run for.
The one thing that we left out of this, because it's a little hard to display, kind of, in
this format, is the instructions to opt out.
So the CTI requires that at least once a month, you put in, in the text message, usually I
recommend at the bottom of the text message, instructions on how to opt out.
So this would be something along the lines of, you know, "To opt out, reply 'Stop.'"
Very simple.
It doesn't take that many characters.
Now, you are going to lose subscribers whenever you put that information in there, but what
I like thinking about is, you're actually losing people that don't want to receive your
messages, that almost see it as a negative, you know, with your brand.
Because if they're getting messages and they don't know how to opt out, that is just only
hurting your brand.
So you want to get those people out of the campaign if they don't wanna be part of it.
Also, I think that builds trust with the people that want to receive the text messages, because
they constantly see that you're willing, you know, and there's instructions there, for
people to opt out whenever they want.
So people feel comfortable receiving the text messages and they know if, maybe down the
road, they don't wanna receive the messages, they move away, they can opt out at any time.
They're not, you know, kind of tricked into staying into the campaign.
It kind of builds a rapport with the business.
So I always recommend, if you have the characters, always put it in the message.
If you're short on characters, put it in once a month into your messages.
So maybe every four messages or every five messages, depending on how many messages you're
sending per month.
But at least put it in there once, so that people maybe, if they opted in by accident,
maybe they had forgot about the campaign and they're now receiving messages, at least every
couple messages or so, they're going to see instructions on how to opt out.
So the consumer's not gonna get frustrated by constantly receiving your messages without
being able to opt out.
So that's it.
That is the SMS Marketing Blueprint and it's a free blueprint that you can download.
We'll put the link in the description below.
But feel free to use this on Tatango, on whatever SMS provider you're using.
And really, I think this is a great template to use even for each individual text message.
Use it almost as like a checklist, just to make sure that you're including everything
and you're not forgetting anything when you send your mass text messages.
Again, my name is Derek Johnson with tatango.com.
Let us know if you have any questions in the comments below.
And if you want to download this free text message marketing template, we'll include
the link in the description.
Thanks.