Beyond Email Part 1: SMS

Email is without question the most important tool used by B2B media companies to acquire, engage and retain both new readers and customers. However, bulk commercial email messages are less likely to be delivered to the intended inbox than ever before. This is a very daunting proposition for B2B marketers today because corporate email domains typically restrict the delivery of bulk email messages at a very high rate and depend upon proactive whitelisting by corporate users outside of your control.

Even if an email is delivered to an intended inbox, the competition for attention is extremely high. There is no guarantee that the recipient will engage with your message given the ever-growing volume of emails received each day.

This is not meant to discourage you from utilizing email for marketing. It is a request for you to rethink how, when, and why you use email to engage prospects, loyal readers, and customers as well as to explore other complementary digital communication vehicles.

Why SMS?

SMS messaging is one of the most important alternatives to email for everyone with a mobile number. Here are just a few of the reasons you should explore utilizing SMS to market your B2B media content to readers and products to advertisers:

1. Email is asynchronous while SMS is immediate. SMS messages are both delivered and read faster than email.
2. SMS messages are not subject to corporate email spam filters. This doesn't mean you can send any content via SMS, but as long as you comply with FCC guidelines, your message will be delivered to the intended recipient.
3. SMS numbers have a much longer life span than corporate email addresses. Mobile phone numbers are typically owned by an individual while corporate email addresses are owned by their employer. This means that an SMS number will continue to allow you to reach the reader even when he or she switches jobs.
4. SMS response rates are extremely high. While there is no 'Read' metric for SMS messages, SMS delivery and click through rates are extremely high since a reader must proactively provide consent for you to proactively use SMS to communicate with them.
5. Cost-effectiveness. SMS has traditionally been shunned by businesses because of the perceived high cost. Remember that SMS requires an opt-in so your list size will be much smaller than your comparable email lists and your messaging will be more infrequent. A small investment can yield fantastic results for any media brand.

This doesn't mean there are not challenges to SMS marketing:

1. SMS is more intrusive than email. Make sure you are respectful in the reason for and frequency of your SMS messages. SMS is intended for urgent communications so make sure your SMS messages will also be considered urgent to the recipient.
2. Send B2B SMS messages only during regular local business hours. Because SMS messages are urgent in nature, make sure your audience receives your SMS when they are working and not when they are eating dinner with the family or sleeping. You can segment messages for local delivery either by the user's area code time zone or by the zip code from a more complete user record.
3. SMS messages are strictly opt-in. You will need to modify your web site forms to ensure you are collecting only mobile numbers and include specific purpose opt-ins. This also means you will build your SMS lists gradually over time. An SMS strategy requires planning and will take time to yield results.
4. Opt-outs will be high. Because of the urgent and timely nature of SMS messaging and the lack of spam filtering, even if you do everything optimally in SMS marketing, you will have a very high rate of opt outs. This is to be expected and will take some experimentation to find the optimal opt-out rate for your brand and use case.

What SMS Use Cases Work in B2B Media Marketing?

SMS messaging is one of the most important customer communication alternatives to email for an increasing number of businesses. For example, many DTC companies use SMS as a communication tool informing customers of completed orders and package delivery updates. But I don't send physical packages to my readers, how is SMS useful to a B2B media marketer?

Here are four proven and urgent SMS use cases that apply specifically to B2B media brands:

Print Requalification

For a controlled circulation print magazine, it is necessary to request requalification from your subscribers at least once every three years. This is a critical but costly process for audience development teams. Email is the communication tool of first resort but to reach many of your subscribers telemarketing is a necessary and expensive tool.

If you modify your subscription forms to include a specific opt-in to periodically requalify via SMS message, you can send a message that only requires the reader to respond with a 'Y'. Critically, SMS requalification messages are now fully BPA compliant.

SMS requalification can save an audience development team a significant amount of money each year. While the cost of telemarketing is measured in dollars for most brands, it is measured in cents for SMS.

Breaking News Alerts

SMS is not just for audience development. It is a very important tool for editors and driving site traffic as well. Most editors take great pride in breaking important news stories before their competition. SMS can help ensure that readers receive that news from you first.

Because SMS messages deploy faster than bulk email and because most recipients are notified when they receive a text, SMS news alerts can become an invaluable part of your editorial strategy.

The breaking news alert is very simple in structure. It should include only a short headline, a shortened link to read the story on your site (use a brand-specific URL shortener to make sure readers will recognize the source), and a "Reply STOP to cancel" message.

While single digit click throughs is considered successful for most breaking news emails, SMS breaking news emails can receive click through rates as high as 50% or more!

It is critical to set up your forms to specifically request readers to opt-in to breaking news. Keep in mind that you can get very granular in your opt-ins. Consider offering multiple opt-in options for breaking news alerts so they only receive the alerts that are important to them. Segment breaking news by the headers of your site or even by the companies included in the news to receive even higher conversion and lower opt-out rates.

SMS Newsletters

SMS is a strong option as an alternative distribution for newsletters. Most B2B media brands rely on daily and weekly newsletters to drive site traffic. SMS can provide an option for readers to receive your existing newsletters through an alternative channel.

As with breaking news alerts, you must collect a specific SMS newsletter opt-in. The format is much the same as for breaking news. It should include only the name of the newsletter and the date, a shortened link to read the newsletter on your site (use a brand-specific URL shortener to make sure readers will recognize the source), and a "Reply STOP to cancel" message. Most ESPs offer a dedicated link to an HTML version of your newsletter that you can choose to use to combine with the email click metrics or you can post an HTML version of your newsletter to your site.

As you experiment with SMS newsletters and build an opt-in deployment list and strategy, you may want to consider creating some SMS specific newsletters as well!

Short Codes

So far I have only covered methods to engage known opt-in readers with SMS. Short codes provide you with a critical method to promote SMS opt-ins via other communication channels.

By advertising dedicated short codes, you can allow prospects to opt-in to any specific list you may maintain. You can use individual short codes for different types of messages, for example, "text 'Y' to 1234 to receive Breaking News Alerts" and "text 'Y' to 6789 to receive our Weekly Newsletter".

You can also use one short code with multiple calls to action. For example. "Text 'news' to 1234 to receive Breaking News Alerts" and "Text 'newsletter' to 1234 to receive our Weekly Newsletter".

It is important to note that SMS opt-ins are tied exclusively to a short code or phone number and not to a specific list. If you use the same short code to maintain multiple lists for different list types, an opt-out will apply to all message types.

Short codes can also be provided to sales reps to give to their customers as an alternative to a mobile number for sales-related SMS communications as more and more customers are showing an interest in conducting business via SMS.

This can be of benefit to both your sales reps and your company as a short code can be pointed to a private mobile phone number. Some sales reps are reluctant to share their private mobile numbers with clients and this would allow a short code to remain tied with a specific sales territory as sales reps change over time.

Closing Thoughts

Creating an SMS communication program takes forethought and planning because of the opt-in requirements. Even if you are not ready to start sending SMS message for any specific purpose, now is the right time to ensure your web site opt-in forms are properly configured to allow opt-ins.

If you have any questions about starting up with SMS for your B2B media business or have any specific questions about best practices and metrics, please don't hesitate to comment on this article or message me directly.

I'll be back with Part 2 of the Beyond Email series next week to talk about LinkedIn.