Nightlife Guide to Getting Started with Text Messaging – 4 Steps
So you’ve decided you want to start including texting into your promotions on a PROFESSIONAL level? So where do you start? Here are 4 easy steps to follow to come up with your plan and run with it.
Gather Contacts
The first step is to build up a database of party people if you don’t already have one. This isn’t as tricky as it may sound, as you can offer incentives the process. For example, on your website or facebook, as patrons to register online for party alerts, complete surveys of an event or enter competitions for bottles which require certain contact details. But once you get this list, it’s very important that you separate the list between girls and guys, age range, and location. If your event doesn’t speak to the demographic, there’s no point in even sending the text to them and wasting the money.
Make your customers feel like they’re part of an exclusive text club, rather than just a boring mailing list, by offering premium and exclusive access to certain events, maybe even meeting the DJ before the party? This is how you’ll persuade them to part with their contact details.
For best practice though, always remember to offer an “STOP” option so people can get off of the list if they want.
Like I said earlier, personalize your data by segmenting the contact database into demographics and specific target groups. This is going to let you send “Ladies Night” specials to just the ladies. Guys would get a different type of text for the “Ladies Night”. Targeting the wrong user for a campaign can be severely detrimental to your image so this is really worth doing.
Write Good Messages
Texts are limited to 160 characters so you need to be short and to the point when getting your message across. The simplicity of a text is its appeal, so don’t try to be too technical. And please don’t be that guy that sends an MMS message that’s like 4 texts long. Not cool.
‘Calls to Action’ are essential within marketing texts. Ensure that you’ve made it completely clear what you want the consumer to do after reading your message. This could be a phone number, a link to a mobile website and ideally a time frame which will create a sense of urgency. Something like “Ladies Night at XYZ Lounge tonight! First 5 to REPLY NOW will get a bottle of champagne for your group.”
Use an Official Texting Company
Choose a platform that can deliver both inbound and outbound text campaigns. Ideally, this system should be flexible and web based, allowing you to either create the campaigns yourself from scratch or offer a managed service to guide you through the process. We have found:
Track Your Success
In order to maximize your continued success with your texting campaigns, it’s vital that you track and report the results of the initial scheme. The platform you use will have different metrics that will allow you to set goals before the campaign is launched. The best metric to use is the response rate.
Final Thoughts
Although texting has been around for over a decade now, it’s still has a HUGE place in the nightlife. It’s relatively cheap and the return on investment can be good if you use it correctly.
Happy texting!
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