Communicating with consumers via SMS today requires an injection of creativity if brands are to hold attention spans to the point of purchase. Time and time again, SMS proves itself to be the most effective mobile marketing tool and with 98% of messages being opened and an average response time of 90 seconds, it’s clear to see why. However, brands need to make sure that they don’t take these statistics for granted. Communication via SMS is evolving and brands need to make sure that they evolve too.
There are a plethora of ways that a business can infuse creativity into their SMS campaigns, ensuring that they offer their customers the personalised and engaging experience that they increasingly crave. Incorporating HTML5 functionality is one way to liven up an SMS campaign, enabling brands to add rich content that provides an additional layer of engagement.
Specific Targeting
HTML5 can be used to design specific landing pages for campaigns in a way that appeals to a specific target market. The leading design applications that contain HTML5 builders allow businesses to cater to the preferences of specific audiences, which will ultimately result in a higher response rate and a more effective marketing campaign. Data is just as important as content when building a campaign, as it can be used to intelligently target campaigns with a high level of precision.
Enrich messages
One of the main advantages of introducing HTML5 into SMS campaigns is that it has the capacity to enable businesses to enrich SMS messages with images, videos and audio. In addition, brands can embed clickable links within their messages, which mobile users can click to instantly launch an app or mobile optimised website in their device’s browser, all of which allow the brand to say more than text alone.
A higher level of engagement
Implementing HTML5 as an extension of an SMS campaign also provides a strong platform for a brand to communicate its core values easily and succinctly, through offering a clear call to action. The rich content that HTML5 provides has the potential to draw the customer in on a deeper level than a plain text message, encouraging a higher level of engagement.
Tracking
One of the most integral features of HTML5 is the ability to track the embedded links by simply integrating a web analytics tool, for example, Google analytics within an SMS platform. This then allows a business to attribute a monetary value to each transaction or interaction, which is great for measuring success. HTML5 also has the capacity to go even further than this, through not only showing how many people have clicked on the call to action but also who they are, through MSISDN tracking, which is a simple and effective service that facilitates data capture of customers details with ease via a mobile website.
Testing
HTML5 is also useful for applying A/B testing which can help improve a businesses approach to mobile messaging. A/B split testing is the method used to test two variations of something so that their performance can be compared, this enables a business to judge which variation is the most effective for your them. Testing can underpin future campaigns with information a business can easily generate from their customer interactions. The additional element of real-time engagement that mobile offers ensures this model of communication evolution is something any business can launch with minimal effort.
Personalise your campaign
An example of how HTML5 can add value to the content of a business’ message could be a personalised SMS from a women’s clothes shop which includes an image of an item of clothing, with the call to action “buy now”. When selected, this takes the customer through to a payment page.
Another example is a fast food restaurant sending an image of a pizza with a money off voucher, with the call to action, “call now” which when selected transfers the customer straight through to the fast food restaurant. In essence it is easy to pull in personalisation fields and use interactive links which can trigger other actions such as a phone call, SMS or email in response.
In conclusion, utilising HTML5 technology is a great tool for any business that wants to stay ahead of the game and improve brand recognition. Building a brand and improving communications in line with the digital trends is vital to successfully appeal to a wider audience.
